A. Harry Moore School
2078 Kennedy Boulevard near Culver Avenue

Mid-twentieth century post card of A. Harry Moore School
View looking southeast from Culver Ave. and Kennedy Boulevard.
Courtesy of R.F. Smith

Designed by John T. Rowland, Jr., the A. Harry Moore School on Kennedy Boulevard has an exterior of white pressed brick in Gothic-style architecture with modified Egyptian influence. The interior has elevators, handrails, corrective gymnasium, auditorium and other facilities for wheel chair-bound students. The curriculum provides the students with comprehensive services in the areas of physical therapy, professional occupational therapy, and learning disabilities.

About 1915 Dr. Henry Snyder, then Jersey City Superintendent of Schools, and Mayor Frank Hague both sought to found an elementary school for children with physical challenges. Groundbreaking for the construction of the unique school--Public School No. 36 at Clifton Place--began two years later, but it was not completed until 1921 due to problems of design. Instead the building became part of the Jersey City Medical Center, and the proposed school was temporarily relocated to the first floor of Public School No. 30. The new Superintendent of Schools Dr. James A. Nugent and Mayor Hague then enlisted Jersey City school architect Rowland to design a new building on Hudson (now Kennedy) Boulevard. Construction for the school began in October 1930 and was initially called the A. Harry Moore Home for Crippled Children.

Governor A. Harry Moore, for whom the school is named, was present when the cornerstone was laid on May 5, 1931, and the school opened in September 1931. It was Moore who had obtained the funding for the school in Jersey City to serve children with special needs. An addition with a natatorium, treatment rooms and solarium was made possible in 1939 with Federal Works Progress Administration funds obtained by the then US Senator from New Jersey, A. Harry Moore, in 1939.

The school was part of the Jersey City public school system until 1963, when the City of Jersey City leased the school to New Jersey City University, formerly Jersey City State College, as a laboratory school for its Special Education program. The A. Harry Moore School is presently funded through the State of New Jersey and continues its association with the University. It has an enrollment of approximately 190 students from Hudson, Bergen, and Essex Counties, whose local school districts make contributions to the school as a resource center for children.

A. Harry Moore (1879-1952)
Governor of New Jersey - 1926-1929, 1932-1935, 1938-1941

The only three-term governor of New Jersey, Arthur Harry Moore (July 3, 1879-November 18,1952) began his political career in Jersey City. He was elected New Jersey governor for three nonconsecutive terms in 1925, 1931 and 1937 under the 1844 state constitution. With the support of his mentor Jersey City Mayor Frank Hague, Moore succeeded to the state's highest office, winning easily in each campaign, and to a US Senate seat as a Democrat in a mostly Republican state at the time. Moore's attributes as a politician are described in a New York Times article: "Mr. Moore's success as the greatest vote getter in the history of New Jersey was owing partly to his personality. He was an affable, friendly politician of the old handshaking, baby-kissing school. But most important in his rise was the backing of Mr. Hague" (19 November 1952)

Moore, one of six children of Robert White and Martha (McComb) Moore, was born in the working class Lafayette section of Jersey City. They lived on Pine Street and were members of the Old Bergen Reformed Church (former Dutch Reformed Church). He left school at age thirteen but continued his education by taking secretarial courses at Cooper Union in New York City. It not only prepared him for employment but also for his first political experiences as the secretary to Jersey City Mayor Otto Wittpenn from 1908 to 1911. After serving as city tax collector from 1911 to 1913, he won his first elective office as parks commissioner on the first City Commission of Jersey City. As the new Jersey City Director of Parks and Playgrounds, Moore became an advocate for children with physical disabilities. His commitment to this cause resulted in the construction of the school in Jersey City that bears his name. He also formed a close association with fellow commissioner Frank Hague, who later advanced Moore's political career. Moore attended the New Jersey Law School in Newark and passed the state bar examination in 1924 at age 45.

In his first election campaign for governor in 1925, Moore ran as a "wet" candidate against his "dry" opponent, Republican State Senator Arthur Whitney. If elected, Moore pledged to start a movement for Congress to alter the Volstead Act and gained the support of "wet" Republicans. Moore defeated Whitney by a plurality of 40,000 votes; Whitney credited "Hagueism" for Moore victory. During his first term as New Jersey's governor, Moore oversaw the revision of state's "Blue Laws," voted to end state court injunctions against strikes and picketing, and supported the increase of workmen's compensation to twenty dollars a week. He oversaw the opening of the Holland Tunnel with Governor Al Smith of New York. The tunnel that opened in 1927 started in New York and extended into New Jersey in the Lafayette section of Jersey City of his childhood. When inspecting the tunnel with Smith in 1926, Moore called the Holland Tunnel "one of the outstanding achievements of engineering history and of great significance to the States of New Jersey and New York" ("Smith and Moore Meet in Tunnel." New York Times 22 August 1926).

As a Democrat during the Depression, Moore was easily elected governor again in 1931 with a plurality of 230,000 votes. He worked to reduce the state budget and to provide additional funding to the state's municipalities; his term was also marked by his attention to the case of the Lindbergh baby (1932), formation of the State Planning Board, and control over narcotics by the State Department of Health. Moore appointed Hague's nephew, Frank Hague Eggers, as a judge of the First District Court in Hudson County in 1934.

As he was ending his second term, Moore was asked by Hague asked to run for the US Senate in 1934; Moore overran his opponent with a 234,000 vote plurality. Then in a highly irregular move in American politics, Moore resigned his Senate seat after two years to run for governor again in 1936. Historian Richard J. Connors writes that Moore was "philosophically a Jeffersonian Democrat," came to question the New Deal program of Franklin D. Roosevelt, and was the "only Senate Democrat to vote against the Social Security Act of 1935" (Connors, Encyclopedia of New Jersey 534). During his Senate tenure, however, he successfully secured federal funding for projects essential to improving the economy in Hague-controlled Hudson County. In 1937 Hague again requested that Moore run for governor in 1937; he was handily elected for a third term with a plurality of 45,000 votes. He led the state in the approval of the pari-mutuel system of horse race betting and of control on the price of gasoline and liquor. When asked to run for governor in 1943, Moore respectfully declined.

Moore retired from public life and resumed his law practice in Jersey City where he lived on Arlington Avenue. He served as counsel for the Hudson and Manhattan Railroad. Moore also had a home in Hunterdon County where he died in 1952. Moore is buried in New York Bay Cemetery. In 1953, the A. Harry Moore Apartments on Route 1 and Duncan Avenue were opened and dedicated in his memory.

References:

Connors, Richard J., "A. Harry Moore." The Governors of New Jersey, 1664-1974: Biographical Essays. Ed. Paul A. Stellhorn. Trenton: New Jersey Historical Commission, 1982.
Connors, Richard J., "A. Harry Moore." Encyclopedia of New Jersey. Ed. Maxine N. Lurie and Marc Mappen. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2004.
"Ex-Gov. Moore, 73, of Jersey Dies in Car." New York Times 19 November 1952.
Smith and Moore Meet in Tunnel." New York Times 22 August 1926.
"Whitney Defeated; Concedes Victory to Moore, Who Wins by 40,000." New York Times 4 November 1925.