He expressed hope that the "beauty and majesty of the building would bestir all of bustling, untidy Newark" to replace its gloomy factory buildings and ugly tenements.
A scheme of replacing tenements with decent housing for Dublin's poor began.
"That doesn't bother me," he said, pointing to clusters of large brick housing projects in front of the fire station that have replaced old tenements that were burned down.
As the city expanded to the south and west, detached and semi-detached villas with large gardens replaced tenements as the predominant building style.
Palbrock was wealthy; he had spent large sums in civic welfare; he had championed the building of low-rental apartments, to replace slummy tenements.
While Federal officials envisioned urban redevelopment in the 1950's as replacing dilapidated inner-city tenements with modern affordable housing, more often it has cleared blighted areas to build shopping malls, office buildings and condominiums.
The tenure provision of rent-regulation laws has prevented developers from replacing crumbling tenements on a block with one big new building.
Already, 42nd Street west of Eighth Avenue has become a residential corridor of high rises, replacing tenements, army-navy stores, parking lots and a police horse barn.
The building replaces abandoned tenements that stood next door to the 1925 theater.
Upscale communities tied to the university have systematically replaced tenements.