Armories & Convention Halls
I’ve always been interested in postcards. Here are some Camden postcards, some dating back to the 19th Century. If you have any images to share, please contact me.
— Phil Cohen
Thanks to Benedict Tisa for contributing many images now on this page.
The subject of “convention hall” and “The Armory” can be a bit confusing. Over the years Camden has had at least THREE buildings called “The Armory”, and TWO called “Convention Hall”… and the SECOND Armory became known as Convention Hall after the FIRST Convention Hall burned down!
Armory #1 was built on West Street south of Mickle in the late 19th Century. It was replaced around the turn of the century by the Armory #2, the 3rd Regiment Armory depicted below. The old Armory burned to the ground in 1906 in a fire that took the lives of three Camden firemen. Before it burned down, it was used to host pro basketball and other events of a similar nature. The Camden Electrics, 1902–1903 champions of the National Basket Ball (two words in those days!) League, played their home games here.
A third Armory was built around the time of World War I to house Field Artillery Battery B of the New Jersey National Guard.
In 1926 the first Convention Hall opened its doors, on Memorial Avenue near Line Street. This building remained in use until it too burned down in the early 1950s. Convention Hall hosted boxing and wrestling matches, and other similar events, including a televised circus show in the early 1950s called The Big Top.
Here is where the confusion arose. When Convention Hall #1 burned down, virtually all of the events formerly held there now were held at the Armory #2, which became known in short order as Convention Hall! Most people born after 1945 would have little or no memory of the original Convention Hall, or the Armory #2 was ever called anything else but “Convention Hall”!
This Convention Hall (#2, if that helps), the old 3rd Regiment Armory (also #2), was where roller derby, wrestling, and in the early 1960s the Camden Bullets professional basketball team held forth, until it too was lost in a fire, in the early 1970s.
Armory #3 has been the home of Camden’s Public Works Department since at least the 1970s.
3rd Regiment Armory
Armory, 3rd Regiment National Guard N.J. — 1906
3rd Regiment Armory — Postcard from 1911
Camden Convention Hall — 1926
Battery B Armory on Wright Avenue
“New Armory Wright Avenue Camden N.J.” — 1918
Battery B Armory on Wright Avenue — later the home of Camden’s Public Works Dept.
Battery B Field Artillery at 3rd Regiment Armory — Postcard has date of May 21, 1908 (front and reverse)
Postcards of Camden — 1950s
1> The Cooper Branch Library, now known as the Walt Whitman Poetry Center
2> The Soldiers Monument — Camden Convention Hall (#2) is visible behind the trees!
3> Camden High School, as seen from Park Boulevard, east of Baird Boulevard.
4> Center City Camden NJ — Note the elevated railway, known as “The Chinese Wall” along Mickle Street, at the bottom of the photo; and the Stanley Theater in the lower right corner, at the present site of the Transportation center at Broadway and Mickle; the Woolworth Store on Broadway; Lit Brothers on Broadway, whose building is now used by the County government; and the Parkade building, to the left of City Hall.