Category Archives: Chapbooks
Jack Quinby – Boats, Ships & Everything
Jack Quinby (1930-1995) was a marine engineer at Hoboken’s Lackawanna Railroad Terminal and worked as a fireman on coal-burning tugs and ferryboats.
Charles Kosbab – Sweet Cigar Charlie, Rigger Specialist
Charles Kosbab (1915-2001) was a rigger at the Bethlehem Steel Shipyard in Hoboken (and its predecessors, W. & A. Fletcher Co. & United Dry Docks) for 53 years.
Tom Olivieri – When People Got Together and There Were Feasts
Tom Olivieri, a former tenant’s rights activist and city cultural affairs official, has long been at the center of cultural and civic activities in Hoboken’s broad-ranging Hispanic community.
Jack O’Brien – Spirit of ’76
Jack O’Brien has been playing the fife in various Hoboken fife and drum corps for over 65 years.
Marvin Stemple – A Form of Doctor
Marvin Stemple is now retired as a second-generation Hoboken pharmacist.
Dorothy McNeil – Club Zanzibar
Dorothy McNeil worked at Club Zanzibar, an African American nightclub at 601 First Street in Hoboken. It featured performances by popular African-American entertainers throughout the 1960s and 1970s, continuing until 1981 as a neighborhood bar.
Betty Silvani – Schnackenberg’s Luncheonette
Betty Silvani is one of the daughters of Schnackenberg’s Luncheonette, founded by her parents in 1931 on Washington Street.
Albert Hegetschweiler – Everybody Seems to Know Me by the Paper Hat
Albert “Heget” Hegetschweiler (1914-ca. 1990) was a woodworker at the Soborg Woodworking Company on Clinton Street, which specialized in work for the maritime industry.
Judge Charles DeFazio – Hoboken: Circus Maximus At All Times
Judge Charles DeFazio, Jr. (1905-1996) was an attorney and self-described “political gadfly,” whose recollections include stories about his family’s journey from Italy to Hoboken, the city’s role as one of the ports of embarkation for troops during World War I, Prohibition, the McFeely administration, Mayor Thomas Vezzetti, and the deadly fires of the late 1970s and early 1980s.