Photos - Courier - Rail sites prized in Plainfield exhibit

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Published in the Courier News, Sunday, May 21, 2006

Rail sites prized in Plainfield exhibit
Central train station to adorn city postcard

By BERNICE PAGLIA
Correspondent

PLAINFIELD -- Train stations were the ticket for winning top prizes in a contest to gather contemporary images of the city.

William Monroe's photo of NJ Transit's Netherwood station in a Christmas blizzard took first place, while Paul LeGrand's view of North Avenue from the main station in center city was chosen to become a postcard in the Plainfield Public Library's "Plainfield in Focus" contest.

All 69 entries were displayed Saturday at the opening of a library exhibit that will run through mid-summer.

Monroe's photo from Dec. 25, 2002, shows the station bathed in a golden glow as the storm is in progress.

A resident of Plainfield, he said he greatly enjoyed the exhibit.

"There are so many beautiful places in Plainfield that need to be recorded before they aren't here any more," Monroe said.

LeGrand, who also is a local resident, received a third-place ribbon before finding out that his image would become the new Plainfield postcard.

The contest came about while LeGrand, a self-professed "avid photo hobbyist," was working on a project to recreate images from old postcards of city sites.

"I've been doing it for about a year," he said. "The contest just kind of meshed with it."

LeGrand also expressed concern for capturing images of the city in transition.

Some weeks ago he took photos of the nurses' residence at Muhlenberg Regional Medical Center before it was torn down to make way for a new nursing school. He remembered his grandmother working at the hospital.

"Some of the changes have been painful to witness," LeGrand said.

He and Monroe also won honorable mentions for other photos.

Amateur photographers were invited to submit contemporary images to augment the library's extensive historic photo collection. The new postcard will join another special collection. Digitized images from both the photo and postcard collections may be seen at the library's web site -- www.plainfieldlibrary.info/ -- and the new ones will be added online later this year.

About 40 people viewed the entries mounted in the Anne Louise Davis Room. As the winners were announced, murmurs of appreciation mingled with applause for the public's favorites.Connie Pinkowski, a Fanwood resident who is studying digital photography and silk screening at the duCret School of the Arts in Plainfield, dazzled the viewers with her image of a blooming cherry tree in an April snowstorm.

Pinkowski said she was working on a silk-screen project when someone said it was snowing outside.

"I went running out with my camera and never came back to class," she said.

Pinkowski won an honorable mention for the shot and also picked up the third-place ribbon for a photo of the War Memorial near City Hall.

Local History librarian Jessica Myers said any single one of the entries could have won an award for some aspect of the submission, making what she called "an impossible situation" for judges Mark Edwards, Nancy Piwowar and Jean Mattson. After much consideration, the top winners emerged. The Friends of The Plainfield Public Library donated prize money, giving $200 for first place, $150 for second place and $50 for third place.

Other entrants included Angela R. Bayak, Carlos Cardozo, Richard Carlin, Jose Manuel Cruz, Claudia Delgado, Angela Flores, Ashley Flores, Dawn Lyerly-Cruz, Louise Patillo, Jasmine Seymour and E.I. Stevenson.

Also, Pat Ballard Fox, former director of economic development in Plainfield; Dan Damon, the city's former public information officer; and Allison McWilliams, a daughter of former Plainfield Mayor Albert T. McWilliams.

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