In January of 2005, the Jewish Community Center (owners of the Kahn Bath House) announced ambitious plans to move from the current location in Ewing to a new eighty acre site in West Windsor, NJ. Although the actual move will probably not occur for another two years, there is justifiable concern about the fate of the Kahn Bath House and the sympathies of the new owners to its maintenance and restoration. Although covered by a Ewing preservation ordinance which would prevent demolition, it will be critical that the new owner be committed to the preservation of this structure.

      From a distance, the Bath House retains it simple elegance and purity, but closer inspection reveals many items that give cause for serious concern. The pointing between the concrete blocks has been poorly maintained and repaired. Large cracks in the walls are clearly visible in several places. In spots, there are patches of moss measuring over six feet in length growing down the surface of a wall.

     In addition, there have been several curious building modifications through the years, which severely detract from Kahn's original design. These include removal of a circular floor design in the central atrium;painting over a mural Kahn designed for the original entrance; poor structural repair to the roof and installation of cheap, inappropriate roofing materials; the addition of an ugly "snack bar" to the rear of one of the changing rooms.

      Perhaps the most extensive coverage of the state of these buildings appeared in Preservation Online, April 29, 2005, in a story entitled Bathing Beauties:

    Built by Kahn in 1957, the deteriorating pavilions were deemed a safety hazard to the campers. Progress was made in 2000 when the Garden State Historic Preservation Trust Fund provided $23,325 for a historic site management grant, funding a restoration study.

      "The major issue with the bathhouse is that it was constructed of very standard, inexpensive materials of the time," says Michael Mills of the Princeton, N.J.-based architectural firm Ford, Farewell, Mills & Gatsch, which completed the study in the spring of 2003.

      "If Kahn had been thinking of this as a 100- or 200-year old building, he might have provided more moisture protection or hung gutters from those beautiful roofs. At this point, we recommend rebuilding several walls as opposed to repairing them, because the concrete slabs are cracked from the water that has gotten underneath them and frozen."

      The restoration study estimates that it would cost $486,000 to repair and rebuild the bathhouse. Mills recommends restoring the ring of pebbles at the center of the design by setting them in concrete so that wheelchairs are able to go over them safely. Another $400,000 is needed to rebuild the day camp pavilions, which have been without roofs for so long that two of the four are "complete redoes," says Mills.

     In 1997, the Philadelphia Chapter of the American Institute of Architects placed the Kahn Bath Houses on their list of Endangered Buildings, with the following words:

    "Jewish Community Center (Trenton) Bath House, 1955, Ewing, NJ, Louis I. Kahn, architect. Although not, technically, in the eight county Philadelphia area, everybody puts the Trenton Bath Houses on their list. The bath houses themselves are not threatened, but the adjacent pavilions used by the day camp are in poor condition and unused. Efforts are underway to raise money to restore the structures and find an appropriate use."

  It has also been placed on the National Register of Historical Preservation, with the listing Trenton Jewish Community Center Bath House and Day Camp (added 1984 - Building - #84002730) and the Preservation New Jersey, Endangered Historic Site register.