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Van Houten–Van Allen House

1772 establishments in New JerseyColonial architecture in New JerseyHistoric American Buildings Survey in New JerseyHouses completed in 1772Houses in Passaic County, New Jersey
Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in New JerseyNational Register of Historic Places in Passaic County, New JerseyNew Jersey Register of Historic PlacesNew Jersey Registered Historic Place stubsStone houses in New JerseyTotowa, New JerseyUse American English from August 2026Use mdy dates from August 2026
Van Houten Van Allen House, Totowa, NJ
Van Houten Van Allen House, Totowa, NJ

The Van Houten–Van Allen House, also known as the Van Allen–Garretson House, is a historic Dutch Colonial stone house located at 490 Totowa Road in the borough of Totowa in Passaic County, New Jersey, United States. It was built by Roelif and Antye Van Houten around 1772. The house was documented by the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) in 1938 and was added to the National Register of Historic Places on April 4, 2025, for its significance in architecture.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Van Houten–Van Allen House (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Van Houten–Van Allen House

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Latitude Longitude
N 40.903694444444 ° E -74.216277777778 °
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Van Houten Van Allen House, Totowa, NJ
Van Houten Van Allen House, Totowa, NJ
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Killing of Geetha Angara

On the afternoon of February 9, 2005, the body of 43-year-old Geetha Angara (born July 15, 1961) a chemist, was found in a water tank at the Passaic Valley Water Commission treatment facility in Totowa, New Jersey, United States, after the tanks had been drained. She had not been seen since the previous morning when she had gone to the water tanks to take samples; items she had been carrying when she was last seen alive were also found. The items, a radio and broken beaker, were found in the water, below an access panel that was slightly ajar. Broken glass was found on the floor near that panel. An autopsy found bruises on Angara's neck consistent with choking, as well as on her waist and elbows, suggesting she had been involved in a violent struggle, but not a deadly one. The cause of death was determined to be drowning, as she was alive when she had gone into the water. Investigators classified the case as a homicide, believing the killing had been intentional; they put Angara's death as having occurred the day before.Since access to the plant was tightly controlled, police believed that the responsible party was someone else in the plant that day. After interviewing all of Angara's coworkers over the next few months, detectives found some possible motives and narrowed a list of possible suspects down to eight men. Three were ultimately considered suspects, but after further investigation the case went cold, and as of 2020 they have not been publicly identified and no arrests have been made.Investigators have also considered the possibility that the death was purely accidental, based on the work of a Scottish pathologist who argues that injuries very similar to those associated with strangulation can occur as victims drown in very cold water such as that Angara was found in—the theory is that the plate over the tank might negligently have been left open following some sample collection for water testing. Struck by similarities with a 1968 killing of a woman, also in Passaic County, alone while in a high-security industrial complex on a weekend, they looked for leads in that case's file. In 2007, Angara's family, frustrated by the lack of progress, successfully pushed for the state's Attorney General to review the case, but that effort did not result in any new leads or information either.