Hoboken / Manhattan Real Estate Blog

City turns 150 today, but party will last all year!

It’s time to get the birthday cards ready, because Hoboken is turning 150.

Although the city’s history dates back to the journey of Henry Hudson’s “Half Moon” in 1609, Hoboken was not officially incorporated as a city until March 28, 1855 under the leadership of Mayor Cornelius Clickener. Grand celebrations with huge parades and well-attended parties marked the community’s 50th and 100th anniversary celebrations.

“We are a city steeped in history and tradition,” said Mayor David Roberts Thursday about the Sesquicentennial Celebration. “The sport of baseball was invented at Elysian Field, and the first Tootsie Roll was produced in the mile-square city. Our ingenuity also resulted in the creation of the ice cream cone and the zipper, not to mention the birth of Frank Sinatra.”

Roberts added that throughout the rest of the year, the city will be commemorating the anniversary with a series of events, to which everyone is invited to participate.

Steeped in history

Many notable events and innovations have marked Hoboken’s long and distinguished history. In the mid-1800s, Hoboken played host to the first organized game of baseball. The New York Nine defeated the Knickerbockers 23 to 1 in four innings at Hoboken’s Elysian Fields.

As the city approached the turn of the century, the town became an industrial hub of shipping and transportation and as a gateway for immigrants who enriched the city’s ethic vitality. In its industrial heyday, giants from Bethlehem Steel to Hostess Cakes set up shop in the city.

The primary industry during Hoboken’s days as an industrial capital was shipbuilding, but at various times, the city was home to industries that created other products that became household names. They included Maxwell House and Lipton Tea.

Hoboken’s favorite son, Frank Sinatra, was born Dec. 12, 1915 at 415 Monroe St. The son of Italian immigrants, he started as a singing waiter, but by his 20s he was performing with his hero, Bing Crosby.

By the 1980s, a growing group of artists, followed by young professionals, began to discover Hoboken. In this inexpensive alternative to Manhattan, craftsmen could find a cold-water flat for less than $100 a month.

Developers began taking an interest. After years of tough changes and strife brought on by rising rents, condo conversions, and gentrification, the city also became a poster child for urban revitalization.

The waterfront has seen a renaissance when it comes to open space on the river. Pier A, Sinatra Park and the Hoboken Train Terminal have been revamped and re-imagined. Where longshoremen once labored, bankers, computer programmers and lawyers play Frisbee with their families.

A long list of events

The following events are slated to take place over the next few months:

The city has plans to bury an Anniversary Time Capsule. According to city officials, the capsule will include a one-page essay or drawing by Hoboken School Children about what Hoboken means to them. The Time Capsule is scheduled to be buried on the lawn of City Hall, 94 Washington St. (between First and Newark streets) at a date and time that will be announced this week.

* There will also be a large birthday cake, live music, and a special 150th Anniversary Ceremony. The exact time for that event should also be announced sometime this week.

* World’s Largest Birthday Card - Large panels will on display at various sites around town. Panels will be on display at City Hall, the Hoboken Historical Museum, the Hoboken Public Library, and Symposia Bookstore for signing. Panels will also be passed around to all of the local schools and churches. Residents are encouraged to sign the Birthday Card panels. The goal is to get every resident to sign the card and then be listed in the Guinness Book of World Records. The panels will be on display on Monday, March 28 at Hoboken City Hall from 11 a.m. until 4 p.m.

* The Hoboken Post Office will create a special postmark to commemorate the anniversary, which will be available for purchase at Hoboken Post Office on Monday March 28.

* Sunday, April 3, from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m., there will be free tours of Hoboken’s houses of worship. See some of Hoboken’s most beautiful architecture. You will be greeted at each site by a Historian who will share historical facts & little known stories about Hoboken’s Houses of Worship. Explore secret passageways, private areas & much more. Tour Maps are Free and can be picked up at each site or at City Hall, 94 Washington St., on the Day of the Tour. For further information call (201) 420-2207 or go online to www.hobokennj.org.

* An Anniversary Gala / Fundraiser is scheduled for Saturday, April 9 aboard the Cornucopia Cruise Line. The event will include a cocktail reception, a buffet dinner, dessert and coffee, dancing, and a three-hour cruise around Manhattan, as well as a Silent Auction (the city will auction off the anniversary banners currently displayed on Washington Street). Live entertainment and dancing throughout the night will include chamber music, jazz, a barbershop quartet and a Sinatra-style singer, as well as a special performance by the band Joyride. The boat ride will be from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m. Tickets are $100 and can be purchased at City Hall. Black tie or 19th Century costume is optional. The docking location is to be announced.

* On Thursday, April 14, a Toddler’s Parade will take place at 11 a.m. The line of march takes place at Frank Sinatra Park and goes along the walkway to Pier A Park.

* On Saturday April 16, the city will host the 150th Anniversary Parade beginning at noon. The line of march will begin on 14th Street, head down Washington Street and end at Pier A Park (First Street and Frank Sinatra Drive). According to city officials, the parade will be the biggest in Hoboken History and will include marching bands, City Officials, and representatives from police and fire departments from all over Hudson County, Hoboken’s mounted police unit, several small floats and balloons provided by Macy’s, school children in historic costumes, representatives from many of Hoboken’s merchants, social clubs and non-profit organizations.

* * On Sunday, May 1, the Hoboken Arts & Music Festival will take place on Washington Street from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. It will feature over 300 artists, photographers, sculptors and crafts people. There will be lots of great food, three stages of live music, and stuff for kids on Third Street. Admission is free On either May 15 or May 22, as part of the Sesquicentennial Celebration, the city will also celebrate the 100th Anniversary of the Hoboken Elks Club. A special luncheon will take place honoring all residents age 90 and above who were born and raised in Hoboken, as well as the family with the longest running genealogy.

* On Tuesday, May 31st at 7 p.m., the Hoboken Veterans will recreate the March down First Street to commemorate the World War l Port of Embarkation.

* The Summer Enchanted Evenings Concert Series will celebrate the 150th birthday by sponsoring a Frank Sinatra Open Mic night. The kick-off concert takes place on Thursday, June 2 from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Admission is free. Sign-up begins at 5 p.m. There will be a grand prize given to the best look-alike and sound-alike Sinatra type performer.

* On Saturday June 11, a Spaghetti Dinner Block Party will take place from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. along the walkway from Frank Sinatra Park to Pier A Park. Admission is $10 and will include spaghetti, meatballs and salad, as well as live music.

* On June 17, 18 and 19, the city has scheduled a vintage baseball festival where teams from around the country will play a series of games using the rules from the 1800s, wearing authentic costumes and using vintage balls and bats. There will also be a mini-parade with all of the participating teams marching down Washington Street to the ball field. Additionally, there will be sports clinics, memorabilia display and sales, a Father’s Day Children’s Festival, a film presentation, and Mile Square Theatre will present its yearly “7th Inning Stretch” playwright series at DeBaun Auditorium. Hoboken’s first Vintage Baseball Team will play a championship game on Sunday evening to close out the event.

* On June 25, “Hello Hoboken: Part One 1900- 1918″: an original one-act play will start at 8 p.m. Written by Marian Roland and Tony DeVito, the play was penned at the time they created the Hoboken Civic Theatre. Topics covered in this 12-song production touch upon famous residents, the many languages spoken in Hoboken, and amusing anecdotes and inventions which first saw the light of day in Hoboken. This production was first performed at the River City Fair. Sponsored by the Hoboken Rotary Club and the Hoboken Chamber of Commerce.

“Hoboken’s African-American Firsts” exhibit will be on display at Mt. Olive Baptist Church, 721 Washington St., Hoboken. This exhibit will focus on the achievements of African-American Hobokenites who were the first to break the color barrier in the history of Hoboken in various areas. Opening exhibit program - Saturday, May 28 at noon. The exhibit will remain open until 5 p.m. The exhibit will also be open to the public from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday, June 25, 2005; Saturday, July 30, 2005, and August 27, 2005.

* The Hudson Reporter will be releasing a commemorative magazine, Hoboken’s 150th Anniversary Journal, celebrating the extraordinary history of Hoboken. The free publication will be distributed in the Hoboken Reporter sometime in May, as well as at many of the events listed above.

Monroe Center holds not just artists, but startup companies

By Tom Jennemann
Reporter staff writer

Inside the non-descript factory building that is the Monroe Center, there’s a brightly colored maze of small businesses and artists, many of whom are making names for themselves in national markets.

Since opening in 1990, the converted Levelor Blinds Factory on the city’s formerly industrial west side has maintained an eclectic mixture of businesses that now include ad agencies, interior designers, cake bakers, architects, toy makers, dance instructors, and yoga studios.

Over the years, the Monroe Center has gained the reputation for attracting some of the city’s funkiest and most innovative small businesses and entrepreneurs.

Charmaine “Cakediva” Jones, who is known for her highly elaborate cake designs, has been there from the beginning, even before the former factory was renovated to include walls to create separate lofts.

In the early 1990s, Jones was balancing two careers, one as a model/music composer and the other as a budding cake baker.

“I was modeling at the time, so to stay in shape I would turn up the house music and rollerskate all over the building while I made sugar flowers,” said the energetic and slightly eccentric Jones.

Then when her cake business took off, Jones decided to forgo modeling to become the “Cakediva” full-time. Jones, who is an avid soap opera fan, has had her cakes featured in episodes of All My Children, One Life to Live, and The City.

Her other clients have included musician Erykah Badu; Queen Latifah’s mom; Michael Jordan; Jay Leno, and Susan Sarandon.

It’s a career for which she had a certain genetic aptitude, considering that her mother was a French pastry baker and her father was an artist and architect. Jones herself has a master’s degree in fine arts from Loyola University. While her specialty is African-inspired cake designs, she has the skill to bake just about any cake design imaginable. Some of her all-time favorites include a four-tiered cake incorporating a tank full of live goldfish for the opening of the Atlantis Hotel in Paradise Island, Bahamas.

Her creations have also appeared in Essence, Wedding Dresses magazine, Bride magazine, and Time Out New York, among others.

Currently, she is setting up a cake display at the Newark Museum’s Here Come the Brides: Fairy Tales, Folklore & Wedding Traditions exhibit.

“I feel really proud that I’ve have been able to change the course of cake-making history,” said Jones, who said she is beginning to write a book to teach others her techniques. “Hopefully one day ‘Cakediva’ will become as common a word as General Mills.”

Snowboarding in Hoboken?

The Cakediva is just one of the interesting businesses in the Monroe Center. Bo Dziman runs Turbine Boardwear, a company that designs and distributes snow board jackets and pants.

While mountain-less Hoboken might seem like an odd place for such a business, Dziman has been able to use New Jersey’s reputation to his advantage. He has marketed his clothes as “Boardwear from the Toxic State,” a tongue-in-cheek tagline that Dziman says plays well with young snowboarders looking for an urban look. Currently Turbine’s clothes are stocked in over 2,000 stores around the county, and according to Dziman, his company is currently in the top 10 nationally in terms of snow board apparel sales, with over 200,000 pants and jackets sold annually.

All of the clothes are designed in Hoboken, and stored and distributed from warehouse in California. Dziman, who has been at the Monroe Center for about five years, said Tuesday the unique makeup of the building’s tenants has helped their creative process.

“Nearly every day, in the hallways, you have the most interesting conversations with artists and other business owners,” said Dziman “It’s a very stimulating and thought-provoking place.”

He added what makes the environment even better is that most of the companies, including his, are largely staffed by local residents.

“There’s all of this wonderful talent to tap into here in Hoboken,” said Dziman, who is himself a happy Hobokenite. He moved into his Hudson Street home about 10 years ago, and he can be seen riding his green Vespa Scooter around the city. “I live here, work here and shop here,” Dziman said.

And now, even as his business grows, he has no intentions of moving Turbine. “Hoboken is the heart and soul of our business,” he said.

Ad men…and women also

Dziman isn’t the only one that says the casual atmosphere and lack of corporate stuffiness is a definite plus. When Hammerhead Advertising Agency was formed five years ago, it operated out of founder John Perl’s cramped Jersey City apartment. But then about three years ago, they moved into a spacious loft in the Monroe Center, where their business has more than doubled every year since.

Today Perls and co-founder Todd McVey have an eight-person staff, bill out over $5 million annually, and have held prized accounts with noted companies such as Chef Central, buybuy Baby, Component Hardware, Intronis, Bayonne Medical Center, NJ Partnership for a Drug Free America, and the Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation. “Here we are, a small firm, tucked into a loft space on the west side of Hoboken that’s taking business away from Madison Avenue,” Perls said.

In many ways, said Perls and McVay, the milieu at the Monroe Center has helped them build their image. “It a great environment with so many different funky businesses and people,” said Perls.

“I think that one of the reasons that most people in the building get along so well is because we’re all in the same boat,” said Perls. “We’re entrepreneurs that are trying to make it, which gives us a lot of common ground to talk about.”

You think it, we make it

Another one of the more fascinating businesses is the three-person industrial design firm Propeller Inc. What does an industrial designer do?

“It’s similar to an architect, but instead of designing buildings, we design products,” explained Propeller President Ken Zorovich, who runs the company with Managing Director Yos Kumthampinij and Senior Mechanical Engineer John Earle. Their clients include small start-ups to Fortune 500 companies from a wide rage of industries.

The two-and-a-half-year-old company has designed everything from toys to camping equipment, to complex medical machines.

Clients come to them with a concept and then Propeller conducts research, graphically and mechanically designs the product, builds a prototype, and even pitches a marketing and brand strategy.

Recently, they have designed high-tech headlamps for camping and spelunking. Also, they are working with Nike’s Advanced Innovation Team on a product development project.

“The environment at the Monroe Center has been a real benefit for us because there is this great cross-pollination of ideas and services,” said Zorovich. He said that recently they used a photographer from the Monroe Center whose product shots were part of the presentation that won them the Nike contract.

Plans for the future

The Monroe Center currently has city approvals to expand into a large mixed-use project. Upon completion, Monroe Center will include 435 residences, 125,000 square feet of retail, and 110,500 square feet of office/studio space, 1,120 indoor parking spaces, and 1.25 acres of community space.

In addition to the existing buildings, Monroe Center will consist of two new 13-story high-rises, one new 12-story high-rise, one new 10-story high-rise, two new five-story mid-rises, enclosed parking garages, ancillary parking and other amenities.