2013.003

Staff / Produced by

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Museum Collections.

1997 - 2004

Date(s) Created: 2004 Date(s): 1997-2004

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Notes: Archives 2013.003.0015 Hoboken: a walking tour and street map. The Hoboken Historical Museum. 2004. [side 1] The Hoboken Historical Museum THE HOBOKEN HISTORICAL MUSEUM was formed in 1986. Its purpose and objectives are many. We hope to stimulate interest in the city's history, architecture, and genealogy. We offer exhibits, cultural programs and walking tours, maintain a museum space at 1301 Hudson Street and publish a bi-monthly newsletter. The Museum also assists in the preservation of historic documents and landmarks, and acquires artifacts relating to our city's rich history. We work with organizations with similar interests and host annual community events such as the House Tour, Secret Garden Tour, Baby Parade, and the Heirloom Tomato Festival. As one of the most active organizations in Hoboken, we welcome new volunteers and members. If you would like to become a Museum member and receive our bi-monthly newsletter, discounted admission to the Museum and special events, and discounts in the Museum shop, write or call us: Hoboken Historical Museum 1301 Hudson Street mailing address: P0 Box 3296 Hoboken NJ 07030 (201)656-2240 www.hobokenmuseum.org Membership: Individual: $30/year, Family: $50/year GETTING TO HOBOKEN New Jersey Transit bus #126 from the Port Authority Bus Terminal, NYC. New Jersey Transit buses from nearby towns. By subway: PATH (Port Authority Trans Hudson) from various stops in Manhattan and New Jersey. By train: New Jersey Transit trains to Erie Lackawanna Terminal (Hoboken). Local bus up Washington Street to Hoboken Historical Museum. By ferry: Ferry from World Financial Center, West 38th Street & 12th Avenue, or Pier 11, New York City. By car: Via Lincoln Tunnel or Holland Tunnel. Hoboken is on the west shore of the Hudson River, north of the Holland Tunnel, south of the Lincoln Tunnel. Funding for this pamphlet is made possible by a Block Grant from the State/County Partnership program for the Arts administered by the Hudson County Division of Cultural and Heritage Affairs, Tom DeGise, County Executive, and the Board of Chosen Freeholders. This walking tour guide is published by the Hoboken Historical Museum, © 1994, 1997, 2004. Design, Illustrations and Map © 2004 by Joy Sikorski Writer: Paul Lippman & Dee Rae Photographer: Robert Foster ==== HOBOKEN, NEW JERSEY is a community that simultaneously enjoys the benefits of a big city and the neighborliness of a small town. Children walk to school and play hopscotch on the sidewalks. Streets are swept with brooms and carts. Neighbors gather on front steps amid flowerpots planted with geraniums. Between the Hudson River and the Palisades, the Lincoln and the Holland Tunnels, Hoboken is just one mile square. You can walk to everything, yet the city is also a transportation hub, with a subway, ferry, light rail, and railroad terminal. Known as the birthplace of Frank Sinatra and of baseball, Hoboken's character and charm have been preserved for over 150 years. The city is arranged in a tidy urban grid lined with cherished Victorian row houses, turn-of-the-century churches, quaint storefronts, and factories of faded brick. As you take your walking tour of Hoboken, you will find yourself traveling back in time to a warm, human-scaled world that is still alive and well in the Mile Square City. Welcome to Hoboken! Allow 2 hours to walk this tour at a leisurely pace. ---- 1 THE MACHINE SHOP 1200-1400 Hudson Street, 1891. This two-and-a-half story, thirty-six bay brick structure is the oldest building on the Hoboken waterfront. Built by the W & A Fletcher Company, then acquired by Bethlehem Steel, it was the center of the region's vital shipbuilding and repair industry. During World War II Bethlehem Steel employees worked on more than 4,000 ships. The Machine Shop was in use around the clock, employing as many as 11,000 workers. It closed in 1984. Applied Companies adapted the building for residential and commercial use in 1992. In the year 2001 the Hoboken Historical Museum moved here, in a space donated by Applied Companies. ---- 2 LIPTON TEA BUILDING 14th & Washington Streets, 1905. Architect unknown. Visible the length of Washington Street, this massive block of a building was once the epicenter of Scotsman Sir Thomas Lipton's (1850-1931) vast tea empire. Ships delivering cargoes of tea anchored alongside the building in North Hoboken Harbor (Weehawken Cove) to unload directly on to its dock. Recently converted to residential "loft" apartments, the building is now known as the Hudson Tea Building. ---- 3 ENGINE COMPANY No. 2 1313 Washington Street, 1880. Charles Fall, architect. Neo-Romanesque. Hoboken's firehouses provide distinctive examples of 19th-century architecture: seven are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. This firehouse was restored outside and modernized within following a severe fire in the 1980s. Consult the map for additional historic fire stations in Hoboken. Some have towers where firehoses were hung up to dry. ---- 4 YELLOW FLATS East side of 1200 Washington Street, circa 1890. Built by the Hoboken Land & Improvement Company, these apartments were once home to one of the wealthiest women of her day, Hetty Green, nicknamed the "Witch of Wall Street." Her reluctance to spend money is legendary. It is said that her injured son lost a leg because she was unwilling to pay for his medical attention. The composer Tom Wiggins, who performed under the name Blind Tom, lived here the last years of his life until 1908. ---- 5 THE COLUMBIA CLUB Northeast corner of Bloomfield and Eleventh Street, 1891. The Columbia Club was built by a gentlemen's society composed of one hundred men from Hoboken and New York City. The design, with a conical tower, rounded archways, and horizontal bands, reflects the unknown architect's interest in Romantic architecture, a style known as Richardson Romanesque. The gardens along the median strip of Eleventh Street are planted every year by flower-loving Hobokenites living in the neighborhood. ---- NOTE: This icon indicates properties that that are listed on the National Register of Historic Places, http://www.cr.nps.gov/nr/ ---- 6 DOROTHEA LANGE HOUSE 1041 Bloomfield Street. This four-storied 19th-century brownstone with period awnings is the childhood home of socially-concerned photographer Dorothea Lange (1895-1965). Her photos are among the most memorable images documenting the plight of farmers and their families during the Great Depression of the 1930s. ---- 7 ELKS LODGE 1005 Washington Street, 1906. G.B. Mclntyre, designer. Lodge #74 was founded in Hoboken in 1888 in the Gayety Theatre building at 1015 Washington Street. The edifice at 1005 Washington was designed especially for the Elks, and is the oldest lodge in New Jersey, designated as the Mother Lodge. Many of the original features remain, although the bowling lanes built in the basement are gone. The Lodge hosts a wide variety of community gatherings. ---- 8 ELYSIAN PARK Bordered by Eleventh, Tenth, and Hudson St.s and Frank Sinatra Drive. This city park was created in 1893 from land donated by the Hoboken Land & Improvement Company. Marlon Brando flirted here with Eva Marie Saint in the 1955 Academy Award-winning film On The Waterfront. Just east of the park was the first home of the New York Yacht Club. The park was named after Elysian Fields, a larger open space where some of the first organized games of baseball were played. In the middle of the park a bronze monument by C. H. Niehaus (1855-1935) dedicated on Memorial Day in 1922 pays tribute to those who fought and died in World War I. ---- 9 STEVENS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY Enter through iron gates at the top of Ninth Street. Stevens Institute is America's first college of mechanical engineering, founded in 1870 with a land grant and $650,000 bequeathed by Edwin Augustus Stevens. Stevens Institute has 1,800 undergraduates, 2,700 graduate students, and 2,250 online students from 21 states and 23 countries. Notable alumni include the co-inventor of bubble wrap, the designer of the Quonset hut, and Alexander Calder, American artist (1898-1976) best known for his mobiles. The Williams Library collection includes a Calder mobile, as well as scale models of the multitude of inventions patented by generations of Stevens family members. ---- 10 CASTLE POINT TERRACE Adjacent to the Administration Building. At 100 feet, Castle Point Observation Terrace is the highest elevation in Hoboken, offering a magnificent vista from the Verrazano Narrows to the George Washington Bridge, with Manhattan as its centerpiece. The promontory of green-veined serpentine rock was mentioned in the 1609 log of Henry Hudson's ship, the Half Moon. Stevens Castle, built by Colonel John Stevens in 1854, was razed in 1959 for the present administration building. A large-scale photograph of the castle hangs in Williams Library. ---- 11 STEVENS GATE HOUSE Sixth Street off River Street, circa 1856. The oldest structure of the Stevens estate is constructed of the same serpentine rock mentioned in Henry Hudson's log. It was the grand entrance through which all guests approached the castle. Nearby a flight of wooden steps descends through the rocks to the River Walk below. [end side 1] ==== [side 2] [sketch history at top center] HOBOKEN, NEW JERSEY, THE MILE SQUARE CITY: A BIT OF HISTORY Lenni Lenape Indians camped seasonally on the island they called "Hopoghan Hackingh," "Land of the Tobacco Pipe," for the abundance of green-colored serpentine rock, used to carve pipes for smoking tobacco. Henry Hudson's navigator, on his ship Half Moon, mentioned the green-veined stone during their 1609 voyage up the river that now bears the explorer's name. The men on the Half Moon were the first Europeans known to have seen the island. They were followed by many others. Dutchmen visited in those early years, calling the area "Hoebuck," or "high bluff," for the elevation we today call Castle Point. In 1658 Peter Stuyvesant, Dutch Governor of Manhattan, bought all the land between the Hackensatk and the Hudson River from the Lenni Lenapes for 80 fathoms of wampum, 20 fathoms of cloth, 12 kettles, 6 guns, 2 blankets, 1 double kettle, and half a barrel of beer. Subsequently the land came into the possession of William Bayard. Because he was a Loyalist Tory in 1776, his land was confiscated by the Revolutionary Government of New Jersey to be sold at public auction. In 1784 Colonel John Stevens of the Patriot Army bought the island for 18,360 pounds sterling, then about $90,000. He settled on the name "Hoboken," and the Stevens family became an inseparable part of the city's history. Stevens as early as 1820 began transforming . the wild but beautiful waterfront into a recreation area, with New York City dwellers as his market. He constructed a riverfront walk and a park in today's downtown Hoboken. Weekends, the city-' to-be accommodated as many as 20,000 New Yorkers out for their Sunday picnics via sailboat, rowboat, and ferry. On June 19,1846, the New York Nine defeated the Knickerbockers, 23 to 1 in four innings in the first match game of baseball. The City of Hoboken was incorporated on March 28,1855. George Washington was an honorary member of the Turtle Club, which met near the Elysian Fields at Twelfth Street; club members Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr also dined on sea turtle here. Charles Dickens wrote about his visit to Hoboken in 1842. John Cox Stevens began America's first yacht club in Hoboken in 1844; the America's Cup is named after that club's racing yacht, America. Lillian Russell, John L. Sullivan, Jay Gould, and William K. Vanderbilt entertained called "Hopoghan Hackingh," "Land of the Tobacco Pipe," for the abundance of green-colored serpentine rock, used to carve pipes for smoking tobacco. Henry Hudson's navigator, on his ship Half Moon, mentioned the green-veined stone during their 1609 voyage up the river that now bears the explorer's name. The men on the Half Moon were the first Europeans known to have seen the island. They were followed by many others. Dutchmen visited in those early years, calling the area "Hoebuck," or "high bluff," for the elevation we today call Castle Point. In 1658 Peter Stuyvesant, Dutch Governor of Manhattan, bought all the land between the Hackensatk and the Hudson River from the Lenni Lenapes for 80 fathoms of wampum, 20 fathoms of cloth, 12 kettles, 6 guns, 2 blankets, 1 double kettle, and half a barrel of beer. Subsequently the land came into the possession of William Bayard. Because he was a Loyalist Tory in 1776, his land was confiscated by the Revolutionary Government of New Jersey to be sold at public auction. In 1784 Colonel John Stevens of the Patriot Army bought the island for 18,360 pounds sterling, then about $90,000. He settled on the name "Hoboken," and the Stevens family became an inseparable part of the city's history. Stevens as early as 1820 began transforming . the wild but beautiful waterfront into a recreation area, with New York City dwellers as his market. He constructed a riverfront walk and a park in today's ' downtown Hoboken. Weekends, the city-' to-be accommodated as many as 20,000 'New Yorkers out for their Sunday picnics via sailboat, rowboat, and ferry. On June 19,1846, the New York Nine defeated the Knickerbockers, 23 to 1 in four innings in the first match game of baseball. The City of Hoboken was incorporated on March 28,1855. George Washington was an honorary member of the Turtle Club, which met near the Elysian Fields at Twelfth Street; club members Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr also dined on sea turtle here. Charles Dickens wrote about his visit to Hoboken in 1842. John Cox Stevens began America's first yacht club in Hoboken in 1844; the America's Cup is named after that club's racing yacht, America. Lillian Russell, John L. Sullivan, Jay Gould, and William K. Vanderbilt entertained guests in The Duke House restaurant. Horace Greeley and Henry Ward Beecher frequented Nick's Bee Hive, a lively saloon. John Jacob Astor built a summer home at Washington and Second Streets. Colonel Stevens is best known as an inventor considerably ahead of his time. In 1791 he received one of the first patents issued in America, for a steam engine. Thirteen years later his Little Juliana steamed across the Hudson. In 1808 Colonel Stevens launched the Phoenix, the first steam-driven vessel to make an ocean voyage. Stevens received the first American railroad charter, and by 1825 he designed and built the first experimental steam-driven locomotive in the U.S., running it on a circular track in Hoboken. Stevens designed the T-shaped rail, standard to this day on American railroads. With this early start and the city's waterfront location opposite New York, Hoboken established itself as a rail and water transportation center. The little city was a major port for trans-Atlantic shipping lines, including Holland America, North German Lloyd, and Hamburg-American. Hoboken's facilities and strategic location made it the choice of the Federal government as the primary port of embarkation for troops in World War I. Most of Hoboken was built in the 19th century to standards set by the Hoboken Land & Improvement Company, created by Stevens in 1838 to manage the development of the city. Stevens created Hoboken's orderly street pattern and brought a coherence to its architecture. In 1958 containerization of ship cargo doomed the city's busy waterfront and began an economic decline. However, this preserved the old buildings and streets from the changes that prosperity could have brought in the guise of progress. Hoboken's rapid growth from 1860 to 1910 and its role as a gateway to America brought many immigrants from Europe to the city. The Germans were the first, and Hoboken became a German-speaking city. After World War I, immigrants were the Irish, Italians, Yugoslavs, Latinos, and Asian Indians. The mix gives Hoboken a vibrancy and energy rare in a city its size. Sidewalk cafes, interesting shops, period buildings, street fairs, the Hudson River Walkway, and a busy street life combine to make Hoboken a most colorful and distinctive urban Square Mile. ---- [credit caption for illustrations in this historical text] John Stevens and yacht America paintings courtesy of the Stevens Institute of Technology. ---- 12 ORIGINAL STEVENS ADMINISTRATION BUILDING Fifth Street at Hudson Street, 1870. Richard Upjohn, architect. Italianate/Second Empire. The "A" Building was the first on campus and housed classrooms, offices, and a lecture hall. The original wood-vaulted hall just inside the front entrance today hosts the presentations of Hoboken's vibrant theatrical community. Architect Upjohn also designed Trinity Church in New York City. ---- 13 ALFRED STEIGLITZ HOME Sea Bright Apartment Building, 500 Hudson St. This 19th-century apartment building was one of several Hoboken addresses where the family of noted photographer Alfred Steiglitz resided. Steiglitz is known as the principal advocate of photography as a fine art. His salon in New York, called "291" was one of the first galleries in this country to exhibit photography alongside paintings by such modern masters as Picasso and Cezanne. He was proud of his Hoboken heritage and is quoted as saying "I was born in Hoboken, I am an American." ---- 14 STEVENS PARK Bordered by Fourth, Fifth, and Hudson Streets and Sinatra Drive. Originally Hudson Square, the park was renamed in 1955 in honor of the Stevens family who donated the land. The Civil War statue by Karl Gerhardt (1853-1940) was dedicated by William Tecumseh Sherman in 1888. The adjacent cannons are from the USS Portsmith [sic - Portsmouth], a Civil War vessel that was decommissioned at the Fifth Street Pier in 1901. ---- 15 COURT STREET Between Hudson and Washington Streets, from Seventh to Newark Streets. Court Street originally provided access to the residents' mews or stables. A film location in On the Waterfront in 1955 when Hoboken was home to many dockhands and sailors, today it is a picturesque access for homes and businesses. The cobblestone paving stones were ships' ballast in the 1800's, and remind Hoboken of her seafaring past. ---- 16 ALL SAINTS EPISCOPAL CHURCH 701 Washington Street, 1856. Richard Upjohn, designer, Deutsche & Dietz, Hoboken architects. Gothic. All Saints was originally consecrated as Trinity Episcopal. It was enlarged and reconsecrated as All Saints in 1882. The church is notable for its vaulted interior and fine stained glass. It serves an active congregation today, hosting a school, a book fair, and many other activities. ---- 17 STEPHEN COLLINS FOSTER HOUSE 601 Bloomfield Street. The composer (1826-1864) lived here in 1854 when "Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair" was published. "Hoboken" is penned on the original manuscript. This typical pre-Civil War brick dwelling is Foster's only known intact residence. Some other compositions by Foster are "Camptown Races," "Oh! Susanna," and "Beautiful Dreamer." ---- 18 WILLOW TERRACE Sixth and Seventh Streets, between Willow Avenue and Clinton Street, circa 1880. In this usage "terraces" are streets serving a section of row houses. These compact homes were commissioned by Martha Bayard Stevens for workers at Stevens Castle and the Hoboken Land & Improvement Company. They were patterned after similar workers' houses she had seen in a trip to Scotland. ---- 19 CHURCH OF THE HOLY INNOCENTS Willow Avenue at Sixth Avenue [sic - Street], 1874. Edward Tuckerman Potter and Henry Vaughn, architects. High Victorian Gothic. Dedicated to Julia Stevens, daughter of Martha Bayard and Edwin Augustus Stevens, who died in Rome of typhoid fever at age seven. Built to serve German and Irish immigrants, it did not charge a pew fee to be seated, unlike the norm for the time. Potter's banded arches emphasize the polychromatic exterior of brownstone and white and red sandstone. The choir was added in 1913 and the baptistery in 1932. Though no longer in use, these exterior details of the Episcopal church remain largely intact. ---- 20 FREE PUBLIC LIBRARY 500 Park Avenue, 1897. William Beyer, architect. Italian Renaissance. When the library was dedicated in 1897, it became the third library in New Jersey. It is built of Indiana limestone, with upper stories in yellow brick and terracotta. The copper dome was recently restored. ---- 21 CHURCH SQUARE PARK Bordered by Fourth,Fifth, Garden, and Willow. A popular park for young and old, Church Square Park, in the heart of Hoboken, is sited on land given to the city by Colonel John Stevens in 1804. The park plan dates from 1873. Near Willow Avenue is the 1891 Firefighters' Monument by Caspar Buberl (1834-1899) with Taps, a mascot, buried at its base. Across the park, the Four Chaplains Monument by Arturo Dazzi (1881-1966) honors clergy of differing faiths who died while attending the crew of the torpedoed USS Dorchester in WW II. The pedestal commemorates Marconi, the inventor of the wireless. ---- 22 OUR LADY OF GRACE CHURCH 400 Willow Avenue, circa 1878. Francis George Himpler, Architect. German Gothic. Once the largest Roman Catholic Church in New Jersey, Our Lady of Grace Church was constructed after a design by Himpler, who also designed City Hall. Gifts of paintings and ceremonial vessels were sent by Victor Emmanuel, Emperor Napoleon III, and other Italian and French royalty when the church was dedicated. These and the lavish interior decorations by George Ashdown Audsley (1839-1925) are gone, but Audsley's pipe organ, circa 1899 and designed especially for the chuch, plays on. ---- 23 KEUFFEL & ESSER COMPLEX Third Street at Grand and Adams Streets, 1906. Architect unknown. In 1867 Keuffel and Esser, Hoboken residents, began importing precision instruments for the architectural, engineering, and drafting professions. Their products were used in planning the Brooklyn Bridge. In 1891 their factory produced the first slide rule manufactured in the United States. They supplied Navy periscopes in WWI and Army range-finders in WWII. Spiders were raised in the basement to supply web filaments as cross hairs for gun sights. The West Plant, known locally as the Clock Tower Building, was built of reinforced concrete to replace a prior structure that burned. In the mid-1960's Keuffel & Esser relocated. In 1975 the building was converted to housing and has been cited as a premiere example of adaptive reuse of an industrial building. ---- 24 JEFFERSON TRUST COMPANY BUILDING 313-315 First Street, 1912. Architect unknown. Classical Revival. The Trust was founded in 1905 by a diverse group of Hoboken businessmen who chose the name to represent their democratic and community-service ideals. The bank prospered as the town assimilated successive groups of immigrants. By 1912 the Trust was in this impressive granite and brick building of monumental scale. The coffered ceiling borders a flat-domed, leaded-glass skylight, and the richly detailed plaster interior remains practically unaltered. After the bank failed during the Great Depression, the property changed hands many times before its present owners undertook its restoration and adaptive reuse. ---- 25 UNITED SYNAGOGUE Of HOBOKEN 115 Park Avenue. Modeled after the Great Synagogue of Frankfort-am-Main, Germany, this building was dedicated in 1915. With arched entranceways and windows, third-floor portal windows, and two copper domes, its style combines the Moorish and Gothic Revival architecture popular before World War I. ---- 26 ASSEMBLY of EXEMPT FIREMEN 213 Bloomfield Street, circa 1864. Francis George Himpler, architect. Italianate/Second Empire. This early example of Himpler's work is one of two architecturally intact Hoboken firehouses; the other is at 212 Park Avenue. The second floor features a plaster ceiling rondel of working firemen with the room's gas line interpreted as a fire hose. Exempt Firemen were excused from public duty after seven years of volunteer service. Today the building serves as a museum of Hoboken firefighters' memorabilia. ---- 27 HOBOKEN CITY HALL 94 Washington Street, 1883. Francis George Himpler, architect. Second Empire modified to Beaux Arts Classicism. This square block, donated by Colonel John Stevens, was originally a public marketplace. The design was modified in 1911 to include two projecting bays and an enlarged third floor. The original entrance remains the same. The two patriotic gold-leafed copper eagles were named Hobo and Ken in a survey conducted by the Hoboken Historical Museum. ---- 28 FRANK SINATRA POST OFFICE 89 River Street, 1931. This deco style building was commissioned by the Federal Government, James A. Wetmore, supervising architect. The exterior and lobby remain unchanged since its opening day. In 2003 it was officially named the Frank Sinatra Post Office in recognition of his contribution to the country. Frank Sinatra was born in Hoboken at 415 Monroe Street and lived in Hoboken for the first nineteen years of his life. ---- 29 WORLD WAR I BOULDER WWI American Expeditionary Forces Memorial First Street at Pier A, 1925. Dedicated by Knights of Columbus in 1925, this memorial honors the two million troops who passed through Hoboken, the port of embarkation for all troops during World War I. The slogan, "Heaven, Hell, or Hoboken by Christmas" reflects the soldiers' wish for a speedy return. President Woodrow Wilson sailed from Hoboken in 1918 to attend the Paris Peace Conference, where he proposed the formation of the League of Nations. Pier A is now popular with families, fishermen, office workers on lunch, and hosts summertime festivals, fireworks, and movies under the stars. ---- 30 HOBOKEN LAND & IMPROVEMENT Hoboken Land & Improvement Company, 1 Newark Street. 1889. Charles Fall, architect. Myles Tierney, mason. The Stevens family's real estate holding corporation oversaw the city's street plan and development of its residential, business, and industrial areas. The building is notable for its exceptional brickwork, with recessed panels and contrasting mortar. The Stevens family requested the central staircase resemble a ferry's staircase. High up on the south facade (in the shady cobblestone "private" walkway) is a terra cotta clock surrounded by sea motifs and the company's monogram. The two sets of narrow-gauge railroad tracks are remnants of Hoboken's once extensive trolley system. ---- 31 ERIE-LACKAWANNA TERMINAL Hudson Place, 1907. Kenneth Murchison, architect, Lincoln Bush, engineer. Beaux Arts. The entire structure is built over water on a steel and concrete foundation. It accommodated six ferry slips and fourteen rail lines. The individually roofed train shed arches are an innovative design by Bush. The entire structure is copper-sheathed. The waiting room was recently restored. As work continues on Hoboken's most important building and transportation complex, Sam Sloan (1817-1907), president of the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad, watches approvingly. Sculptor: George E. Bissell (1839-1920). [end side 2] ==== ==== Status: OK Status By: dw Status Date: 2013-05-01