WATSON STREET is in East Camden, having been acquired by the City of Camden in 1899 when the Town of Stockton became part of the City. The street was originally known as Chestnut Street and was renamed in 1906 along with many other streets in East Camden and Cramer Hill. Watson Street runs from South 20th Street, intersecting with Rand and Boyd Streets before coming to its end at Morse Street. Since 1951 it has been the western edge of the Peter J. McGuire Gardens public housing project. 

Form the early 1900s through the early 1950s, Watson Street between South 29th and Boyd Streets was the western edge of a city landfill. The 1906 Sanborn Map of Camden does not show any structures on Watson Street between Boyd and Morse, however a row of 16 homes were built soon afterwards, on the east side, and a twin dwelling on the west side at 2117-2119. 

Nine of the rowhouses on the west side of Watson Street between Rand and Boyd Street were badly damaged in a fire on February 24, 1948. In 1951 the homes on the west side of Watson Street between Boyd and Morse Street were acquired by the Housing Authority of the City of Camden, which built the Peter J. McGuire Gardens public housing project on the site. Around 1970 the Housing Authority of the City of Camden erected a high rise apartment building on land on the west side of Watson Street for senior citizens which was named Kennedy Tower. In the late 1990s McGuire Gardens homes were razed and rebuilt. This project was completed in the early 2000s, with a few new homes on Watson Street. In the early 2000s all of the homes on Watson Street between Boyd and Morse Streets were demolished and the block was erased in order to make room for the new Thomas J. Dudley Elementary School.

Do you have an Watson Street memory or picture. Let me know by e-mail so it can be included here.

 Phil Cohen