The Mullica Hill library will host “Neighborhood Nukes: A Presentation on New Jersey’s Cold War Nike Missile Program,” on Wednesday Sept. 4 at 6:30 p.m.
The presentation will offer insight on New Jersey’s Cold War past from local landscape photographer Richard Lewis, who discovered an abandoned Nike missile site in Lumberton. The site was demolished in 2015, according to Lewis’ website, but he was able to photograph it to preserve its historical significance.
“He felt this Cold War relic was a piece of history that needed to be photographed before it was lost forever,” said the library’s head of adult services, Andrew Brenza. “After sharing the resulting images on his blog, it got the attention of a large number of veterans who served in the Nike missile program during the Cold War, as well as historians.”
Since then, Lewis has been invited to other sites, including in Woolwich Township and Sandy Hook, to photograph and document missile sites.
“That (the photographs) lead to the creation of the program, ‘Neighborhood Nukes, New Jersey’s Cold War Nike Missile Program,’ to share a time in American history where our country was threatened like no other time in its history,” Brenza explained.
The Cold War period in U.S. history was marked by the continuing threat of a nuclear-armed Soviet Union..
“For the first time in over 100 years,” noted Lewis, “the U.S faced the real possibility of an attack on our shores from long-range Russian bombers carrying atomic weapons.”
To answer that threat, the U.S. military began Project Nike – named for the Greek goddess of victory – a program that placed surface-to-air Nike missile sites around the country. New Jersey’s sites were intended to defend mostly Philadelphia and New York City.
The subsequent arms race between America and Russia lasted for nearly five decades. Project Nike was discontinued in 1974 in favor of a new kind of weapon, the ICBM missile, according to Lewis.
“Many of these Nike batteries were demolished or converted to other uses,” he explained. “However, many also remained abandoned until recently, as they are now starting to be redeveloped.”
The library presentation is free but does require registration at the Gloucester County Library System website.
