In a few months’ time it will begin churning with activity, but Wednesday, it was probably the emptiest building of its size in the county.
Courtrooms prepared to host life-altering decisions sat quiet and pristine, pigeons pecked on the burgeoning green roof and a glass-sheathed lobby with rows of empty benches was bathed in the bright sunlight.
A hallway the length of two and a half football fields (nearly a quarter mile), which will later be interrupted by dividing doors, appeared nearly endless.
“If anyone wants to have chair races, this is a great hall,” joked David Drumeler, the deputy county administrator.
For more than three years, diligent construction crews have transformed an outer block of the Journal Square neighborhood in Jersey City into the grey, modern industrial piece of municipal architecture that is the new Hudson County courthouse.
