Here you are, standing at the grand entrance of the Central King Building at NJIT - and if buildings had memories, this one would definitely need a diary with a lock! Let’s wind the clock back to the early 1900s. Picture Newark at that time: a city booming with industry, horse-drawn carriages rumbling through the streets, and maybe the occasional top hat tipping gentleman plotting the future. The Newark School Board had quite the ambitious idea: create a school that wasn’t just about books, but where students could get their hands dirty with wood, metal, machines, even sewing! They wanted a place that was “happier and more healthful” than home. I’m not saying their homes were rough, but if a school’s more relaxing than your house, maybe you need to talk to your parents!
In 1909, the school board held an architect competition to make sure nobody could just show up with a few bricks and a whistle and call it a day. The winning architect, Mr. Myers, had big dreams. He wanted to carve out part of the earth itself, digging deep into a big rocky ledge. But the price tag for just the digging? Forty thousand dollars. Imagine trying to expense that with today’s school board - pencils might have to be handmade from tree branches just to cover the cost! So, in swept the real hero of our story: Ernest F. Gilbert, the school board’s own Head of Construction. Instead of digging, he worked out a clever plan to use the natural slope of the land, saving all that cash and keeping everyone happy - except maybe the guy selling shovels.
As construction began, Gilbert coordinated with George W. Knight, the resident genius for all things heating, lighting, and ventilation. Just a week after plans went public, the board requested a whole extra floor. Talk about late-stage changes! Yet Gilbert simply rolled up his sleeves and found a way to add it without losing the building’s fantastic design. When the school finally opened in 1911, with its official dedication following in 1912, all of Newark celebrated. By 1913, the building even hosted evening classes - clearly ahead of its time for hardworking folks.
Now, gaze up at those towers - they’re not just any towers, but Tudor Gothic sentinels standing watch. The main building boasts a fantastic mix of terracotta and brick, looking almost castle-like, and once inside, the structure buzzed with every kind of activity. The first floor alone housed a machine shop, a library, a metalworking lab, spaces for wood-turning, and even masonry. Upstairs, classrooms for business, laboratories for chemistry and biology, sewing and millinery rooms for crafting hats, kitchens, a laundry room - and by the time you reached the top, you might know enough to bake a cake, sew an apron, and analyze your own baking mistakes with a microscope.
Initially, there was an impressive staircase outside, sweeping down and making an entrance grand enough for any dignitary or overenthusiastic student. But in the 1970s, that staircase was demolished and replaced with an indoor swimming pool. Not sure if that counts as “taking the plunge” into modernization, but there it went! After the strife of the 1967 Newark riots, the area changed, and over time, the universities grew larger around this building. In 2010, NJIT finally made Central King its own, gently ushering out the last high school students and repurposing the building for higher learning.
Today, the Central King Building is in the middle of a stunning transformation - like a superhero in a renovation montage! A $750 million state grant has helped restore it while preserving the beautiful Collegiate Gothic exterior. The new Center for Innovation and Discovery is rising inside, turning old gyms and pools into labs where science and imagination collide. As you stand here, you’re witnessing an ongoing story - where ideas from more than a hundred years ago shake hands with tomorrow’s technology. And if you’re lucky, maybe a little bit of that “happier and more healthful” spirit will rub off on you too… just don’t ask me to sew a hat. My talents lie more in storytelling than millinery!
