Psychogeography: Passaic In Passing

Posted: Sunday March 1, 2026

Psychogeography? If you're scratching your head, check out this brief blog post here.

According to a cringy paywalled Business Insider article from 2019 titled "The 50 most miserable cities in America, based on census data", Passaic, New Jersey was rated as the "fourth most miserable city in the USA". It should be rather obvious that low-effort sensationalist articles like the aforementioned are designed merely as rage bait garbage to drive Google Adsense impressions followed up by harvesting and selling your data as you angrily click through. Yet, I mention the article only because it effectively showcases a deliberate fallacy that is used time and time again to slander urban living all across the United States. These slop articles push a false narrative and stereotype that urban areas and cities are somehow these depressing dead zones void of life that instead seem to dog whistle for this idea of a car-centric, suburban living lie.

Unfortunately, this stereotype and many of the associated negative connotations that go along with it, do seem to have at least a minimal amount of effectiveness. There exists an entire city's population of people that seem to fear any form of urban or city living in the United States. To accurately define the effects of interstate highway destructiveness and urban decay on the nation's many dense urban cores would take the skill of an expert and I am certainly no expert on the topic. However, I have been a resident of the State of New Jersey my entirely life, a state well known as being the densest, population wise, in the country. I've been fortunate enough to be able to travel the state and experience the dichotomy between the corn fields of rural Hunterdon County versus the car choked streets of Hudson County, and it is this duality that I find particularly fascinating.

From the mountains to the shore and the cities between the suburbs, New Jersey is a diverse melting pot of cultures, home to millions of people that reside in dozens of different cities and hundreds of smaller municipalities located all across the state. Within the confines of a single afternoon, one can easily travel by car from say the City of Lambertville to the City of Passaic, which is exactly where I decided to focus this blog post on. Passaic City, in comparison to larger, nearby cities, like Paterson, Clifton, Newark, and Jersey City, tends to get overlooked. Plus, Passaic [City] existing as a place within greater Passaic County situated along the Passaic River, may also lend to the city sort of existing with some bit of obscurity and confusion. However, what sets Passaic apart from its larger neighboring cities is it's population density, which places it at the 7th most dense place in NJ, behind only a bunch of smaller towns and boroughs which probably should be absorbed into their adjacent communities anyway. Passaic is also a majority Hispanic community (obligatory fuck ICE) which also adds to its uniqueness as a place.

What interests me most about Passaic City are the many old mills along the Passaic River and the dense, low-rise downtown district situated along an actual main street. Through my walk all around town, it became clear that the city has indeed seen better days, but that is the truth for just about every town in the USA. While urban decay certainly exists, so does a thriving community of residents and a Main Street (Ave) home to numerous bustling businesses operating out off all types of interesting old historic buildings and storefronts.

In the following thirty-one photographs below, I documented the parts of Passaic that spoke to me. Not everything is pretty, yet not everything is bad either. While wandering on foot, my surroundings never felt dangerous. Kids played in the streets, while others went about their daily lives. Downtown was full of people walking, talking, taking advantage of a place that is most certainly traversable on foot. Music could be heard emanating from business and the scent of food filled the air. While I can only speak for myself, as a de facto foreign visitor, I most certainly never felt miserable. Although what seems to have hurt Passaic the most are the effects of car culture.

Half empty, decaying monolithic concrete parking garages scar the downtown district and yet as of August 2025, a new six story garage has been built. Tie that in with the rise of the modern-day, football field size, mega warehouses that are popping up all over to store our consumerist crap and you have a nightmare for even more truck and automobile traffic. Additionally, the train tracks that paralleled Main Ave were paved over years ago in lieu of parking spots for cars. While a NJTransit train line does still serve the city, the station is a considerable walk from the bustling downtown area and as a result automobile traffic is abundant. Perhaps with a better focus on improving public transit and serving people over automobiles, downtown Passaic could be an even more enjoyable, walkable city.

This vacant grass lot was for many years a large strip mall that was anchored by a ShopRite Supermarket. When ShopRite moved to the next town over, the strip mall fell into disrepair. Recently the entire shopping complex was demolished and replaced with a horrendous warehouse, the horrors of which I have included as photographs further below.

When a mega warehouse was put in where the ShopRite once stood, this diabolical white wall was also installed to block the abutting homes from being able to see the warehouse. I'm sure on paper, this wall exists as some sort of "sound barrier", but in reality it is truly a horrendous piece of infrastructure designed to literally wall a neighborhood in half. The view from the opposite side is even more stark and bleak. The "Great Wall of Capitalism" as I've deemed it; that will no doubt be covered in dick graffiti and demented ramblings from the teenage mind in no time.

A few water fowl bathe in the newly installed retention pond behind the modern mega warehouse. From this angle you can see just how appalling and ridiculous the white wall is, hell, even the line of seagulls perched atop the wall see it as only a facade to shit down. The two houses to the right of the wall have effectively been mentally demolished, hidden away behind a barrier, isolated from the rest of town. But hey, that's progress?

Meow! Meow! What is a city without some street cats?

Recent demolition of a few row homes exposed this open wound of a view. I'm not sure what will replace the structures, but hopefully the debris is cleaned up with some amount of speed.

An on-ramp for State Highway Route 21 has effectively severed this street, turning it into a dead end. Today, a narrow driveway curves along the highway ramp and into a parking lot for a small four story apartment complex. However, decades ago, before Route 21 cut Passaic in half, this street lead to a power canal which powered the massive Botany Mills complex that still exists to this day along Dayton Ave. Much of the power canal was filled in to create the foundation for Route 21.

A look at Alfred Speer Village, Passaic's largest public housing complex which consists of six separate eight story brick apartment buildings, that were constructed in the early 1950s. In early 2025 plans were announced to rehabilitate some units and also tear down three existing buildings. However, I took this photo in late 2025 and at that time, it did not appear that any demolition had commenced.

A look at Passaic's "skyline". Part of what makes the city unique is that the downtown corridor is comprised of a bunch of historic low-rise structures except for of course, the People's Bank and Trust Company Building, which is an 11-story art-deco masterpiece constructed in 1931. Unfortunately, the bulk of the building has been vacant for as long as I have been alive. This structure would be an amazing building to restore into high density housing, but I suppose a shitty parking garage to house cars (pictured left) is more important than housing people.

See a Cybertruck smash a Cybertruck?

Like many cities across the country, Passaic too, is haunted by a handful of really shitty and decrepit parking garages that prioritize the housing of cars over people. This parking garage on the corner of Passaic Ave and Prospect Street is no different in its uselessness. Its only real purpose seems to be climbing to the top to smoke blunts and taking in the view of the city below. Unfortunately, on August 14, 2025, a new six-story municipal parking garage opened nearby, allotting even more subsidized housing for cars over humans.

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