title: Perth Amboy, New Jersey

text: A few of the buildings from this early period can still be seen today. Most notably, the Proprietary House, the home of William Franklin, the last Royal Governor of New Jersey and estranged son of Benjamin Franklin, still stands in the waterfront area of the city. Architect John Edward Pryor was hired in 1761 to design and construct the building, which was completed in September 1764, years late and over budget. Franklin preferred his alternate home in Burlington. Franklin finally moved in 1774 into the Proprietary House. Franklin's father, Ben, tried unsuccessfully to convince his son to support the Colonial cause. William Franklin was arrested and detained at Proprietary House in 1776 until he was tried and convicted of treason.


title: Perth Amboy, New Jersey

text: Perth Amboy City Hall was first built as a court house for Middlesex County in 1714, having been designated as the county seat the previous year. The building was later used as the home of the East Jersey Provincial Assembly. The building was destroyed by a major fire in 1731 and rebuilt in 1745. Another fire was deliberately set in 1764, forcing a rebuilding that was completed in 1767. It is the oldest city hall in continuous use in the United States. On November 20, 1789, City Hall was the site where the New Jersey General Assembly met to ratify the Bill of Rights, becoming the first state in the nation to do so.


title: Perth Amboy, New Jersey

text: Market Square, located across from City Hall, is a park that had been an outdoor marketplace during the Colonial era. Market Square includes a replica of the Liberty Bell, a statue of George Washington and the Bill of Rights Arch, which commemorates the fact that New Jersey was the first state to ratify the Bill of Rights.


title: Perth Amboy, New Jersey

text: St. Peter's Church, which held its first service in 1685 and received a royal charter in 1718, has been recognized as the first Episcopal congregation in the state. Its current building, dating from the 1850s, is surrounded by a graveyard of early inhabitants and displays a collection of stained-glass windows with religious scenes as well as early depictions of New Jersey receiving her charter and a meeting between William Franklin and his father, Ben.


title: Perth Amboy, New Jersey

text: The Kearny Cottage is a remaining example of 18th-century vernacular architecture. Operated as a historic house museum and operated by the Kearny Cottage Historical Society. Built in 1781 on High Street, the house was moved to Sadowski Parkway in the 1920s, and was later relocated to its current site at 63 Catalpa Avenue, just inland from the mouth of the Raritan River.


title: Perth Amboy, New Jersey

text: During the colonial period and for a significant time thereafter, Perth Amboy was an important way-station for travelers between New York City and Philadelphia, as it was the site of a ferry that crossed the Arthur Kill to Tottenville, Staten Island. The first ferry operated in 1684 and regular service began operating in 1709. This ferry became less important when the Outerbridge Crossing opened in 1928, but continued to operate until 1963. In 1998, the Perth Amboy Ferry Slip was restored to its 1904 appearance. A replica of the ticket office has been constructed and is used as a small museum.


title: Perth Amboy, New Jersey

text: On March 31, 1870, Thomas Mundy Peterson became the first African-American in the United States to vote in an election under the recently enacted provisions of the Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Peterson voted in an election to update the Perth Amboy city charter.


title: Perth Amboy, New Jersey

text: By the middle of the 19th century, immigration and industrialization transformed Perth Amboy. Factories such as A. Hall and Sons Terra Cotta, Guggenheim and Sons and the Copper Works Smelting Company fueled a thriving downtown and employed many area residents. Growth was further stimulated by becoming the tidewater terminal for the Lehigh Valley Railroad and a coal shipping point. Perth Amboy developed tightly-knit and insular ethnic neighborhoods such as Budapest, Dublin, and Chickentown. Immigrants from Denmark, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Italy, Russia, and Austria quickly dominated the factory jobs.


title: Perth Amboy, New Jersey

text: In 1903, the Perth Amboy Public Library, one of the first Carnegie libraries in the state, made possible through grants from Andrew Carnegie and donations by local philanthropists, opened to the public.


title: Perth Amboy, New Jersey

text: In 1914, Perth Amboy hosted a minor league baseball team called the Perth Amboy Pacers, who played as members of the Class D level Atlantic League. The Atlantic League folded after one season.


title: Perth Amboy, New Jersey

text: In late August 1923, an estimated 6,000 persons rioted, breaking through police lines after the Ku Klux Klan attempted to organize a meeting in the city.


title: Perth Amboy, New Jersey

text: The city was a resort town in the 19th century and early 20th century, located on the northern edge of the Raritan Bayshore. Since the early 1990s Perth Amboy has seen redevelopment. Small businesses have started to open up, helped by the city's designation as an Urban Enterprise Zone. The waterfront has also seen a rebirth. The marina has been extended, and there are new promenades, parks, and housing overlooking the bay.


title: Perth Amboy, New Jersey

text: The chapter "More Alarms at Night" in humorist James Thurber's biography "My Life and Hard Times" involves Perth Amboy. One night during his adolescence in Ohio, young Thurber is unable to go to sleep because he cannot remember the name of this New Jersey community. He wakens his father, demanding that he start naming towns in New Jersey. When the startled father names several towns with single-word names, Thurber replies that the name he is seeking is "two words, like helter skelter". This convinces his father that Thurber has become dangerously insane. Thurber also wrote the story later made into the film "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty", about an "inconsequential guy from Perth Amboy, New Jersey". Perth Amboy's water pumping station is located in Old Bridge Township.


title: Perth Amboy, New Jersey

text: According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the city had a total area of 5.93 square miles (15.36 km), including 4.66 square miles (12.07 km) of land and 1.27 square miles (3.28 km) of water (21.37%).


title: Perth Amboy, New Jersey

text: Perth Amboy, and South Amboy across the Raritan River, are collectively referred to as The Amboys. Signage for Exit 11 on the New Jersey Turnpike refers to "The Amboys" as a destination. The Amboys are the northern limit of the area informally referred to as the Bayshore.


title: Perth Amboy, New Jersey

text: Perth Amboy borders Woodbridge (adjacent by land to the north and west), Sayreville (to the southwest, across the Raritan River), South Amboy (south across the upper reaches of Raritan Bay, directly connected only by rail), and the New York City borough of Staten Island (east across the Arthur Kill).


title: Perth Amboy, New Jersey

text: Unincorporated communities, localities and place names located partially or completely within the city include Barber, Eagleswood and Florida Grove.


title: Perth Amboy, New Jersey

text: Perth Amboy sits on a geological layer of clay several hundred feet thick. Consequently, clay mining and factories such as A. Hall and Sons Terra Cotta located in Perth Amboy in the late 19th century.


title: Perth Amboy, New Jersey

text: In its September 2005 issue, "Golf Magazine" named Perth Amboy the unofficial "Golf Capital of the U.S.", despite the fact that there are no golf courses within the city limits, citing the city's access to 25 of the magazine's Top 100 Golf Courses in the U.S., which can be found within of Perth Amboy.


title: Perth Amboy, New Jersey

text: Perth Amboy features a historic waterfront, which has gone through significant revitalization. Local attractions include the Perth Amboy Ferry Slip, two small museums, an art gallery, a yacht club, and a marina. Near the marina lies a park with a small bandshell. On Sunday afternoons in the summertime, Perth Amboy hosts the Concerts by the Bay in the park's bandshell. Every Thursday evening in the summer, Perth Amboy hosts the Mayor's Concert Series in Bayview Park. Perth Amboy also hosts an annual Waterfront Arts Festival. The waterfront is also characterized by a redbrick promenade near the water and many stately Victorian homes, some on hills overlooking the bay and tree lined streets with well-manicured lawns. The land rises steeply after two blocks. This hides the rest of the town, making the waterfront look like a quiet fishing village. Points of interest on the waterfront include St. Peter's Episcopal Church, and the Proprietary House, which is now the former governor's mansion and houses a museum and some offices. Kearny Cottage, which also has a museum, is here. This section of Perth Amboy once had a thriving Jewish community with yeshivas, synagogues, kosher butchers and bakers. Today, however, there are only two synagogues left, each with only a few older members.


title: Perth Amboy, New Jersey

text: A project called 'The Landings at Harborside' was to have featured 2,100 residential units along with indoor parking, of retail space, a community center, and recreation amenities for the public as well. However, after meeting with Charles Kushner, the developer who spent two years in prison after being convicted of witness tampering, tax evasion and making illegal campaign contributions, Mayor Wilda Diaz endorsed a scaled-back design concept for the development, allowing Section 8 housing rentals instead of owner-occupied units as originally promised.


title: Perth Amboy, New Jersey

text: The Raritan Yacht Club is the state's second-oldest and one of the oldest yacht clubs in the United States, founded in 1882 from the merger of two older clubs, one founded in 1865 and the other in 1874. Also located on the waterfront and founded in 1917, St. Demetrios was one of the first Greek Orthodox churches in central New Jersey. Established by the Greek immigrants who came to the United States at the turn of the 19th century, this community has stood as a beacon of the Orthodox Faith and Hellenism in Middlesex County.


title: Perth Amboy, New Jersey

text: Perth Amboy was settled by Europeans in 1683 and incorporated as a city in 1718. It was founded by English merchants, Scots seeking religious freedom, and French Protestants, who sought to make use of Perth Amboy's harbor to its full potential. Downtown is the main commercial district, and is centered on Smith Street. It is an Urban Enterprise Zone, and the reduced sales tax rate (half of the statewide rate) funds revitalization of Smith Street with newly planted trees, Victorian streetlights, benches, garbage cans, and redbrick sidewalks. Smith Street is a shopping center seven blocks wide, with stores catering to working-class customers. The street is flanked by mainly two- to three-story buildings of varied architecture. It also has a lone bank skyscraper called 'Amboy Towers', 10 stories tall, located at Five Corners, the intersection of Smith Street, New Brunswick Avenue and State Street. Once home to several department stores downtown, the largest today is discount retailer Bargain Man.


title: Perth Amboy, New Jersey

text: Harbortown is a townhouse development on the waterfront which continues to be expanded since construction started in 1987. "Section 8" housing along with more affluent homes can be found in Harbortown, an economically and ethnically diverse townhouse development in the city.


title: Perth Amboy, New Jersey

text: This area was the Lehigh Valley Railroad marshaling yards where coal was loaded onto barges for shipment to New York City and elsewhere until the LVRR went bankrupt in 1976.


title: Perth Amboy, New Jersey

text: Hall Avenue is a neighborhood centered on Hall Avenue east of the NJ Transit train tracks. The street itself, Hall Avenue, is no longer the commercial strip it once was. However, there is a recently built strip mall on the corner of Hall Avenue and State Street called the "Firehouse Plaza". There is also a "Banco Popular" branch of the bank headquartered in Puerto Rico. However, Hall Avenue is now primarily residential. Most of the homes are aging apartments, but there are also some newly constructed homes. Hall Avenue remains a traditional Puerto Rican neighborhood, and it hosts the city's annual Puerto Rican Day Festival, which is held on the same day of the historic Puerto Rican Day Parade in New York City. Rudyk Park is north of Route 440 and features the Roberto Clemente Baseball Field and an industrial park.


title: Perth Amboy, New Jersey

text: The southwestern section is a mainly working-class residential neighborhood with some light industry, once the site of Eagleswood Military Academy. The city's largest strip mall is located here. This neighborhood has a large and diversified Hispanic neighborhood with many Dominicans, Puerto Ricans, and recently, South Americans. Much of the city's Mexican population also lives in this section. Previously, this section of Perth Amboy had a large Irish population and was once named "Dublin". Following the Irish came the Eastern Europeans, primarily Polish and Hungarian. Most of the housing consists of small one- or two-family houses. The main commercial strip is Smith Street, west of the NJ Transit train tracks.


title: Perth Amboy, New Jersey

text: The western section of the waterfront is west of Kearny Avenue. It is an overwhelmingly blue-collar Hispanic neighborhood. Most of the homes are over 100 years old; many are modest row houses. Sadowski Parkway Park lines through the southern end of the neighborhood and has a walkway with a beach. The park also hosts the Dominican festival and other festivals during the summer.


title: Perth Amboy, New Jersey

text: State Street is a neighborhood east of the NJ Transit train tracks, north of Fayette Street, and south of Harbortown. Like the southwestern section of Perth Amboy, it is predominantly working-class Hispanic. In addition, this neighborhood had many industries and factories before they moved overseas. The neighborhood is mainly Caribbean Hispanic. This section once had a large Cuban community. The State and Fayette Gardens, an apartment complex in the neighborhood, were called "The Cuban Buildings" at one time. The Landings at Harborside redevelopment project is being constructed in this neighborhood.


title: Perth Amboy, New Jersey

text: Amboy Avenue is a quasi-suburban, working to middle-class neighborhood. It is also referred to as the "Hospital section" or the "High School section" due to the fact that these places are located in the neighborhood. Today most residents are Hispanic; Amboy Avenue once had a strong Italian population.


title: Perth Amboy, New Jersey

text: Maurer is a chiefly working to middle-class neighborhood that lies in the northern part of Route 440. It is heavily industrial with many oil refineries and brownfields. Like Amboy Avenue, it is quasi-suburban.


title: Perth Amboy, New Jersey

text: Chickentown is a neighborhood in the western part of Route 35 south of Spa Springs, just south of Route 440. It shares many of the same characteristics of Spa Springs but to a lesser extent. The city's largest park, Washington Park, is located here. It received its name from all the chicken farms (hens and eggs) that were located here before World War II.


title: Perth Amboy, New Jersey

text: Perth Amboy has a humid subtropical climate (Köppen climate classification "Cfa") typical of New Jersey with hot, humid summers and cold, wet winters.


title: Perth Amboy, New Jersey

text: The Census Bureau's 2006–2010 American Community Survey showed that (in 2010 inflation-adjusted dollars) median household income was $47,696 (with a margin of error of +/− $3,644) and the median family income was $53,792 (+/− $2,943). Males had a median income of $38,485 (+/− $2,450) versus $30,078 (+/− $3,452) for females. The per capita income for the city was $20,162 (+/− $933). About 16.3% of families and 19.4% of the population were below the poverty line, including 28.8% of those under age 18 and 15.2% of those age 65 or over.


title: Perth Amboy, New Jersey

text: As of the 2000 United States Census there were 47,303 people, 14,562 households, and 10,761 families residing in the city. The population density was 9,892.0 people per square mile (3,820.9/km). There were 15,236 housing units at an average density of 3,186.2 per square mile (1,230.7/km). The racial makeup of the city was 46.41% White, 10.04% African American, 0.70% Native American, 1.53% Asian, 0.13% Pacific Islander, 35.59% from other races, and 5.61% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 69.83% of the population.


title: Perth Amboy, New Jersey

text: There were 14,562 households, out of which 40.3% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 44.6% were married couples living together, 21.0% had a female householder with no husband present, and 26.1% were non-families. 20.6% of all households were made up of individuals, and 8.8% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 3.20 and the average family size was 3.63.


title: Perth Amboy, New Jersey

text: In the city the population was spread out, with 28.5% under the age of 18, 11.4% from 18 to 24, 31.6% from 25 to 44, 18.3% from 45 to 64, and 10.2% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 31 years. For every 100 females, there were 98.2 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 94.8 males.


title: Perth Amboy, New Jersey

text: The median income for a household in the city was $37,608, and the median income for a family was $40,740. Males had a median income of $29,399 versus $21,954 for females. The per capita income for the city was $14,989. About 14.3% of families and 17.6% of the population were below the poverty line, including 24.1% of those under age 18 and 12.8% of those age 65 or over.


title: Perth Amboy, New Jersey

text: In 2000, 27.79% of Perth Amboy residents identified themselves as being of Puerto Rican ancestry, the fifth highest concentration of Puerto Ricans on the U.S. mainland of those municipalities with 1,000 or more residents identifying their ancestry. In the same census, 18.81% of Perth Amboy residents identified themselves as being of Dominican ancestry, the third highest concentration in the country of Dominicans in the United States after Haverstraw, New York and Lawrence, Massachusetts using the same criteria.


title: Perth Amboy, New Jersey

text: Portions of the city are part of an Urban Enterprise Zone (UEZ), one of 32 zones covering 37 municipalities statewide. The city was selected in 1994 as one of a group of 10 zones added to participate in the program. In addition to other benefits to encourage employment within the UEZ, shoppers can take advantage of a reduced 3.3125% sales tax rate (half of the % rate charged statewide) at eligible merchants. Established in October 1994, the city's Urban Enterprise Zone status expires in October 2025.


title: Perth Amboy, New Jersey

text: The City of Perth Amboy is governed under the Mayor-Council system of municipal government under the Faulkner Act. The city is one of 71 municipalities (of the 564) statewide governed under this form. The governing body is comprised of the Mayor and the City Council, all of whom are elected at-large on a non-partisan basis. The city council is comprised of five members who are elected to four-year terms of office on a staggered basis, with either two or three seats coming up for election in alternating even-numbered years. The mayor also serves a four-year term of office, which is up for election the same year that two council seats are up for vote. In October 2010, the City Council voted to shift the city's non-partisan elections from May to November, with the first balloting held in conjunction with the General Election in November 2012.


title: Perth Amboy, New Jersey

text: , the mayor of Perth Amboy is Helmin J. Caba, whose term of office ends December 31, 2024. Caba defeated former three-term mayor Wilda Diaz who had served 12 years in office from 2008 to 2020. After trailing behind incumbent mayor Wilda Diaz by 33%-30% (a margin of more than 400 votes) in the November 2020 general election, he won the mayoral runoff election against Wilda Diaz on December 15, 2020. Members of the City Council are Rose B. Morales (2024), Joel Pabon Sr. (2022), William A. Petrick (2022), Milady Tejeda (2022) and Bienvenido "BJ" Torres (2024).


title: Perth Amboy, New Jersey

text: In the November 2014 general election, Fernando Gonzalez came in third place, winning the final seat up for election ahead of Sergio Diaz by nine votes. In March 2015, a Superior Court judge ordered a special election between Diaz and Gonzalez after finding that votes had been illegally cast and that there was evidence of fraud in mail voting. In the special election, Gonzalez beat Diaz by a 112-vote margin.


title: Perth Amboy, New Jersey

text: Perth Amboy is located in the 6th Congressional District and is part of New Jersey's 19th state legislative district. Prior to the 2010 Census, Perth Amboy had been part of the , a change made by the New Jersey Redistricting Commission that took effect in January 2013, based on the results of the November 2012 general elections.


title: Perth Amboy, New Jersey

text: Middlesex County is governed by a Board of County Commissioners, whose seven members are elected at-large on a partisan basis to serve three-year terms of office on a staggered basis, with either two or three seats coming up for election each year as part of the November general election. At an annual reorganization meeting held in January, the board selects from among its members a commissioner director and deputy director. , Middlesex County's Commissioners (with party affiliation, term-end year, and residence listed in parentheses) are


title: Perth Amboy, New Jersey

text: Commissioner Director Ronald G. Rios (D, Carteret, term as commissioner ends December 31, 2024; term as commissioner director ends 2022),


title: Perth Amboy, New Jersey

text: Commissioner Deputy Director Shanti Narra (D, North Brunswick, term as commissioner ends 2024; term as deputy director ends 2022),


title: Perth Amboy, New Jersey

text: As of March 23, 2011, there were a total of 22,737 registered voters in Perth Amboy, of which 9,212 (40.5%) were registered as Democrats, 1,022 (4.5%) were registered as Republicans and 12,500 (55.0%) were registered as Unaffiliated. There were 3 voters registered to either the Libertarian Party or the Green Party.


title: Perth Amboy, New Jersey

text: In the 2012 presidential election, Democrat Barack Obama received 87.0% of the vote (11,774 cast), ahead of Republican Mitt Romney with 12.3% (1,667 votes), and other candidates with 0.7% (100 votes), among the 13,869 ballots cast by the city's 24,253 registered voters (328 ballots were spoiled), for a turnout of 57.2%. In the 2008 presidential election, Democrat Barack Obama received 81.6% of the vote (10,999 cast), ahead of Republican John McCain with 16.8% (2,261 votes) and other candidates with 0.7% (91 votes), among the 13,473 ballots cast by the city's 23,248 registered voters, for a turnout of 58.0%. In the 2004 presidential election, Democrat John Kerry received 71.0% of the vote (8,677 ballots cast), outpolling Republican George W. Bush with 27.5% (3,359 votes) and other candidates with 0.4% (79 votes), among the 12,223 ballots cast by the city's 21,686 registered voters, for a turnout percentage of 56.4.


title: Perth Amboy, New Jersey

text: In the 2013 gubernatorial election, Democrat Barbara Buono received 63.1% of the vote (3,574 cast), ahead of Republican Chris Christie with 35.6% (2,014 votes), and other candidates with 1.3% (74 votes), among the 5,915 ballots cast by the city's 24,593 registered voters (253 ballots were spoiled), for a turnout of 24.1%. In the 2009 gubernatorial election, Democrat Jon Corzine received 69.8% of the vote (4,645 ballots cast), ahead of Republican Chris Christie with 24.2% (1,611 votes), Independent Chris Daggett with 3.4% (228 votes) and other candidates with 0.8% (50 votes), among the 6,654 ballots cast by the city's 22,185 registered voters, yielding a 30.0% turnout.


title: Perth Amboy, New Jersey

text: , the city had a total of of roadways, of which were maintained by the municipality, by Middlesex County, by the New Jersey Department of Transportation and by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.


title: Perth Amboy, New Jersey

text: The city is crisscrossed by many many major roads and highways. Major roads in the city include Route 35 Route 184, Route 440, CR 501 and CR 616.


title: Perth Amboy, New Jersey

text: The Outerbridge Crossing, which opened to traffic on June 29, 1928, is a cantilever bridge over the Arthur Kill that connects Perth Amboy with Staten Island. Known locally as the "Outerbridge", it is part of a major route on NY-440 / NJ-440 from the south and west to New York City and Long Island. Despite the assumption that the name is derived from its location as the southernmost bridge in New York State and Staten Island, the Outerbridge Crossing was named in honor of Eugenius H. Outerbridge, first Chairman of the Port Authority. The bridge clears the channel by , providing passage for some of the largest ships entering the Port of New York and New Jersey.


title: Perth Amboy, New Jersey

text: The Victory Bridge carries Route 35 over the Raritan River, connecting Perth Amboy on the north with Sayreville to the south. From the time of its construction in 1926 until the Edison Bridge was completed in 1939, all traffic heading across the Raritan River was funneled through the Victory Bridge, whose original single-span swing bridge was replaced under a project completed in 2005 that provides two spans of traffic, including a main span that was the longest precast cantilever segmental construction in the United States at the time of its construction.


title: Perth Amboy, New Jersey

text: The city has NJ Transit train service at Perth Amboy station. The station provides service on the North Jersey Coast Line to Newark Penn Station, Hoboken Terminal, Secaucus Junction, New York Penn Station and the Jersey Shore.


title: Perth Amboy, New Jersey

text: NJ Transit buses serve the Port Authority Bus Terminal on the 116 route, Elizabeth on the 48 line, with local service available on the 813, 815, and 817 bus routes.


title: Perth Amboy, New Jersey

text: Since 1939, legal use of a bicycle in Perth Amboy requires a license issued by the Perth Amboy police department. The purchase and sale of used bicycles must be reported to the Perth Amboy police department. Any person operating a business engaged in the sale or purchase of new or used bicycles must file a daily report with the Chief of Police detailing the particulars of all transactions. There is at least one bicycle shop in Perth Amboy.


title: Perth Amboy, New Jersey

text: Public schools in Perth Amboy are operated by Perth Amboy Public Schools, serving students in pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade. The district is one of 31 former Abbott districts statewide that were established pursuant to the decision by the New Jersey Supreme Court in "Abbott v. Burke" which are now referred to as "SDA Districts" based on the requirement for the state to cover all costs for school building and renovation projects in these districts under the supervision of the New Jersey Schools Development Authority.


title: Perth Amboy, New Jersey

text: As of the 2020–21 school year, the district, comprised of 12 schools, had an enrollment of 10,786 students and 898.7 classroom teachers (on an FTE basis), for a student–teacher ratio of 12.0:1. Schools in the district (with 2020–21 enrollment data from the National Center for Education Statistics) are


title: Perth Amboy, New Jersey

text: Based on data from the 2013–2017 American Community Survey, 14.5% of adults over the age of 25 in Perth Amboy have a bachelor's degree or higher, a percentage significantly below the state average of 38.9% and the 42.7% of those in Middlesex County.


title: Perth Amboy, New Jersey

text: The Academy for Urban Leadership Charter High School is a public high school serving grades 7–12 open since September 2010, operating independently of the Perth Amboy Public Schools under the terms of a charter granted by the New Jersey Department of Education. The school opened with one hundred 9th graders, with plans to add a class of 100 students each year until it reached its goal of 400 students in grades 9–12 by the 2013–2014 school year and has since added grades 7 and 8. As of the 2017–2018 school year, the school had an enrollment of 576 students and 49.0 classroom teachers (on an FTE basis), for a student–teacher ratio of 11.8:1.


title: Perth Amboy, New Jersey

text: Eighth grade students from all of Middlesex County are eligible to apply to attend the high school programs offered by the Middlesex County Vocational and Technical Schools, a county-wide vocational school district that offers full-time career and technical education at Middlesex County Academy in Edison, the Academy for Allied Health and Biomedical Sciences in Woodbridge and at its East Brunswick, Perth Amboy and Piscataway technical high schools, with no tuition charged to students for attendance.


title: Perth Amboy, New Jersey

text: Assumption Catholic School (Pre-K–8) and Perth Amboy Catholic Primary School / Upper School (Pre-K–8) operate under the supervision of Roman Catholic Diocese of Metuchen.


title: Perth Amboy, New Jersey

text: In 1903, the Perth Amboy Public Library became the first Carnegie library in the state, made possible through a grant of $20,000 from Andrew Carnegie Foundation and donations from local philanthropists, which were supplemented in 1914 by an additional $30,000 in Carnegie grants to pay for two additional reading rooms. The library reopened in 2015 after a $2 million renovation project that kept the library closed for more than two years.


title: Switched-On Bach

text: Switched-On Bach is the debut album by American composer Wendy Carlos, originally released under her birth name Walter Carlos in October 1968 by Columbia Records. Produced by Carlos and Rachel Elkind, the album is a collection of pieces by Johann Sebastian Bach performed by Carlos and Benjamin Folkman on a Moog synthesizer. It played a key role in bringing synthesizers to popular music, which had until then been mostly used in experimental music.


title: Switched-On Bach

text: "Switched-On Bach" reached number 10 on the US "Billboard" 200 chart and topped the "Billboard" Classical Albums chart from 1969 to 1972. By June 1974, it had sold over one million copies, and in 1986 became the second classical album to be certified platinum. In 1970, it won Grammy Awards for Best Classical Album, Best Classical Performance – Instrumental Soloist or Soloists (With or Without Orchestra), and Best Engineered Classical Recording. After Carlos came out as a transgender woman in 1979, reissues of "Switched-On Bach" amended the artist credit to reflect her name, as was the case with the rest of her discography up to that point.


title: Switched-On Bach

text: Around 1967, Carlos asked the musician Rachel Elkind to listen to her electronic compositions. They included compositions written ten years earlier, and some written from 1964 with her friend Benjamin Folkman at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center in New York City. One recording was a rendition of Two-Part Invention in F major by Johann Sebastian Bach, which Carlos described as "charming".


title: Switched-On Bach

text: Soon after, Carlos began plans to produce an album of Bach pieces performed on the recently invented Moog synthesizer. She intended to use the novel technology to make "appealing music you could really listen to", not "ugly" music being produced by avant-garde musicians at the time. Elkind was impressed with the recording of Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in G major and became the album's producer. Elkind contacted her friend, producer and conductor Ettore Stratta at Columbia Records, who "generously spread his enthusiasm throughout the rest of the company" and assisted in the album production. Paul Myers of Columbia Masterworks Records granted Carlos, Folkman, and Elkind artistic freedom to record and release it.


title: Switched-On Bach

text: "Switched-On Bach" features ten pieces by Bach available under the public domain, performed by Carlos, with assistance from Folkman, on a Moog synthesizer. Carlos worked closely with Moog designer Robert Moog, testing his components and suggesting improvements. Most of the album was recorded in a rented studio apartment in which Carlos lived at 410 West End Avenue on the West Side of Manhattan in New York City, using a custom-built 8-track recording machine constructed by Carlos from components built by Ampex. The initial track created, however, the Invention in F major, was recorded in the spring of 1967 on a Scully tape machine in Gotham Recording Studios at 2 West 46th Street, where Carlos had brought Moog equipment for a commercial project.


title: Switched-On Bach

text: According to Carlos, "Switched-On Bach" took approximately five months and one thousand hours to produce. As the synthesizers were monophonic, meaning only one note can be played at a time, each track was assembled one at a time. Carlos said: "You had to release the note before you could make the next note start, which meant you had to play with a detached feeling on the keyboard, which was really very disturbing in making music." The synthesizer was unreliable and often went out of tune; Carlos recalled hitting it with a hammer prior to recording to obtain correct levels. After several notes were played, it was checked again to make sure it had not drifted.


title: Switched-On Bach

text: Bach provided only the two chords of a Phrygian Cadence for the second movement of the Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in G Major, intending that the musician would improvise on these chords. Carlos and Folkman carefully constructed this piece to showcase the capabilities of the Moog.


title: Switched-On Bach

text: "Switched-On Bach" was released with two different covers. The most common features a man dressed as Bach standing before a Moog synthesizer. The first pressing featured the same man seated, as shown above. Carlos and Elkind objected to the original cover and had it replaced, finding it "was a clownish, trivializing image of a mugging Bach, supposedly hearing some absurd sound from his earphones". They also objected to the fact that the synthesizer was incorrectly set up: "[The earphones] were plugged into the input, not output, of a 914 filter module, which in turn was connected to nothing, [assuring] that silence is all that would have greeted Johann Sebastian's ears."


title: Switched-On Bach

text: In 1968, shortly before the release of "Switched-On Bach", Moog spoke at the annual Audio Engineering Society conference and played one of Carlos' recordings from the album. Moog recalled: "I walked off the stage and went to the back of the auditorium while people were listening, and I could feel it in the air. They were jumping out of their skins. These technical people were involved in so much flim-flam, so much shoddy, opportunistic stuff, and here was something that was just impeccably done and had obvious musical content and was totally innovative. The tape got a standing ovation."


title: Switched-On Bach

text: "Switched-On Bach" was released in October 1968. In 1969, it entered the top 40 on the US "Billboard" 200 before it reached a peak of No. 10 that year, for a total of 59 weeks on the chart. From January 1969 to January 1972, the album was No. 1 on the "Billboard" Classical Albums chart, and it reached the seventh position of the Top 50 Albums chart of the Canadian magazine RPM. In February 1974, Columbia Records estimated 960,000 copies of the album had been sold in the US. In June that year, "Billboard" reported the album's sales surpassed one million, the second classical music record in history to achieve the feat. In August 1969, it was certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America, for sales in excess of 1 million copies. It reached Platinum certification in November 1986.


title: Switched-On Bach

text: "Switched-On Bach" was met with a negative response from some classical music traditionalists, but gained popularity among many younger listeners. In a retrospective review for AllMusic, Bruce Eder noted that Carlos' approach "was highly musical in ways that ordinary listeners could appreciate ... characterized by ... amazing sensitivity and finely wrought nuances, in timbre, tone, and expressiveness." Canadian pianist Glenn Gould spoke highly of "Switched-On Bach", saying: "The whole record, in fact, is one of the most startling achievements of the recording industry in this generation and certainly one of the great feats in the history of 'keyboard' performance".


title: Switched-On Bach

text: In 1970, the album won three Grammy Awards: Best Classical Album, Best Classical Performance – Instrumental Soloist or Soloists (With or Without Orchestra), and Best Engineered Classical Recording.


title: Switched-On Bach

text: Following the album's success, Moog received requests from producers and artists for his synthesizers. A number of other Moog synthesizer albums were released, such as "Switched-On Rock" by the Moog Machine, "Music to Moog By" by Gershon Kingsley, and "The Moog Strikes Bach" by Hans Wurman. Moog credited the album for demonstrating that synthesizers could be used for more than avant-garde music and sound effects. He said of the album's success: