2009.004

Found in collection

Found in Collection

Museum Collections.

1976 - 1976

Date(s) Created: 1976 Date(s): 1976

Fair

Notes: archives 2009.004.0021 (Photo looking north at the former Keuffel & Esser building with the clock tower on Third Street between Grand and Adams Streets.) Caption: The Clock Tower Apartments, converted from Keuffel & Esser plant. Exterior was sandblasted and repainted. Old Building in Hoboken Is Given New Life. By Alfonso A. Narvaez, Special to The New York Times. Hoboken, Oct. 27 - Two years ago the massive six-story building at Third and Adams Street was a mass of decaying reinforced concrete. Its facade was a dirty beige. Its interior was littered with broken glass and plaster from crumbling ceilings. Its concrete floors where large piced of machinery had been ripped from their moorings. The old clock in the tower, which residents set their watches by for more than three-quarters of a century, was silent. Its hands and internal workings were gone. Today at 4 P.M., Mayor Steve Cappiello threw a switch symbolizing a new life for the old plant, now a sparkling apartment building for 173 families of moderate income. The hands of the clock are once again in place and on the roof, a workman activated its new electric innards and set the timepiece in motion. The structure, known as the Clock Tower Apartments, now resounds to the shouts of children and doors to many of the new apartments are decorated with cardboard pumpkins and skeletons or with paper autumn leaves. "This is the first conversion from factory to housing for moderate income families in the United States," Mayor Cappiello told a crowd at the dedication ceremonies. "This is a new kind of project. It will be imitated throughout the nation. We have demonstrated that an abandoned old building can be made into a resourceful housing development. "This demonstrates what can be done with the abandoned resources of our inner cities. With these resources we can reclaim our central [sic] and make them livable again. This project clearly makes that point." Hundreds at Dedication Several hundred residents of the building, neighbors from the surrounding Italian and Puerto Rican area and a host of dignitaries braved the 30-degree temperature to take part in dedication ceremonies for the newly renovated building. The $5 million renovation was started in May 1975. The buildings now contains 16 efficiency apartments renting for $153 a month, 68 one-bedroom apartments renting for $171 a month and 51 two-bedroom apartments renting for $204 a month, as well as 23 three-bedroom and 14 four-bedroom apartments, plus an apartment for the superintendent. Maximum annual income limits range from $7,600 for persons in studio apartments to $17,300 for persons living in four-bedroom units, with the limits depending upon the number of persons in a family. "We have a veritable United Nations here," said Patricia Cical, manager of the building for the developers, Volt Information Sciences, Inc. "We have black families, orientals, Vietnamese, Irish, Italians, Germans, Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, Indians from India and one American Indian Family. This is really a unique experiment." [end] Status: OK Status By: dw Status Date: 2010-03-10