Hoboken is a city in Hudson County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the city’s population was 50,005, having grown by 11,428 (+29.6%) from 38,577 counted in the 2000 Census, which had in turn increased by 5,180 (+15.5%) from the 33,397 in the 1990 Census. Hoboken is part of the New York metropolitan area and is the site of Hoboken Terminal, a major transportation hub for the tri-state region.
Hoboken was first settled as part of the Pavonia, New Netherland colony in the 17th century. During the early 19th century the city was developed by Colonel John Stevens, first as a resort and later as a residential neighborhood. Originally part of Bergen Township and later North Bergen Township, it became a separate township in 1849 and was incorporated as a city in 1855. Hoboken is the location of the first recorded game of baseball and of the Stevens Institute of Technology, one of the oldest technological universities in the United States.
Located on the Hudson Waterfront, the city was an integral part of the Port of New York and New Jersey and home to major industries for most of the 20th century. It is also well known for being the birthplace and hometown of American singer Frank Sinatra, one of the most popular and most influential musical artists of the 20th century, and there are parks and streets located in the city that are named for him. The character of the city has changed from a blue collar town to one of upscale shops and condominiums.
On October 29, 2012, Hoboken was devastated by the storm surge and high winds associated with Hurricane Sandy, leaving 1,700 homes flooded and causing $100 million in damage after the storm “filled up Hoboken like a bathtub”.
The name “Hoboken” was chosen by Colonel John Stevens when he bought land, on a part of which the city still sits. The Lenape (later called Delaware Indian) tribe of Native Americans referred to the area as the “land of the tobacco pipe”, most likely to refer to the soapstone collected there to carve tobacco pipes, and used a phrase that became “Hopoghan Hackingh”. Like Weehawken, its neighbor to the north, Communipaw and Harsimus to the south, Hoboken had many variations in the folks-tongue. Hoebuck, old Dutch for high bluff and likely referring to Castle Point (the district of the city highest above sea level), was used during the colonial era and later spelled as Hobuck, Hobock, Hobuk and Hoboocken. However, in the nineteenth century, the name was changed to Hoboken, influenced by Flemish Dutch immigrants and a folk etymology had emerged linking the town of Hoboken to the similarly-named Hoboken district of Antwerp.
Today, Hoboken’s unofficial nickname is the “Mile Square City”, but it actually covers about 1.25 square miles (3.2 km2) of land and an area of 2 square miles (5.2 km2) when including the under-water parts in the Hudson River. During the late 19th/early 20th century the population and culture of Hoboken was dominated by German language speakers who sometimes called it “Little Bremen”, many of whom are buried in Hoboken Cemetery, North Bergen.
During the late 1970s and 1980s, the city witnessed a speculation spree, fueled by transplanted New Yorkers and others who bought many turn-of-the-20th-century brownstones in neighborhoods that the still solid middle and working class population had kept intact and by local and out-of-town real-estate investors who bought up late 19th century apartment houses often considered to be tenements. Hoboken experienced a wave of fires, some of which were arson. Applied Housing, a real-estate investment firm, used federal government incentives to renovate “sub-standard” housing and receive subsidized rental payments (commonly known as Section 8), which enabled some low-income, displaced, and disabled residents to move within town. Hoboken attracted artists, musicians, upwardly mobile commuters (known as yuppies), and “bohemian types” interested in the socioeconomic possibilities and challenges of a bankrupt New York and who valued the aesthetics of Hoboken’s residential, civic and commercial architecture, its sense of community, and relatively (compared to Lower Manhattan) cheaper rents, and quick, train hop away. Maxwell’s (a live music venue and restaurant) opened and Hoboken became a “hip” place to live. Amid this social upheaval, so-called “newcomers” displaced some of the “old-timers” in the eastern half of the city.
This gentrification resembled that of parts of Brooklyn and downtown Jersey City and Manhattan’s East Village, (and to a lesser degree, SoHo and TriBeCa, which previously had not been residential). The initial presence of artists and young people changed the perception of the place such that others who would not have considered moving there before perceived it as an interesting, safe, exciting, and eventually, desirable. The process continued as many suburbanites, transplanted Americans, internationals, and immigrants (most focused on opportunities in NY/NJ region and proximity to Manhattan) began to make the “Jersey” side of the Hudson their home, and the “real-estate boom” of the era encouraged many to seek investment opportunities. Empty lots were built on, tenements became condominiums. Hoboken felt the impact of the destruction of the World Trade Center intensely, many of its newer residents having worked there. Re-zoning encouraged new construction on former industrial sites on the waterfront and the traditionally more impoverished low-lying west side of the city where, in concert with Hudson-Bergen Light Rail and New Jersey State land-use policy, transit villages are now being promoted. Once a blue collar town characterized by live poultry shops and drab taverns, it has since been transformed into a town filled with gourmet shops and luxury condominiums.
In October 2012, Hurricane Sandy caused widespread flooding in Hoboken, with half the city flooded. In December 2013 Mayor Dawn Zimmer testified before a U.S. Senate Committee on the impact the storm had on Hoboken’s businesses and residents, and in January 2014 she stated that Lieutenant Governor Kim Guadagno and Richard Constable, a member of governor Chris Christie’s cabinet, deliberately held back Hurricane Sandy relief funds from the city in order to pressure her to approve a Christie ally’s developmental project, a charge that the Christie administration denied.
As of the 2010 United States Census, there were 50,005 people, 25,041 households, and 9,465 families residing in the city. The population density was 39,212.0 per square mile (15,139.8/km2). There were 26,855 housing units at an average density of 21,058.7 per square mile (8,130.8/km2). The racial makeup of the city was 82.24% (41,124) White, 3.53% (1,767) Black or African American, 0.15% (73) Native American, 7.12% (3,558) Asian, 0.03% (15) Pacific Islander, 4.29% (2,144) from other races, and 2.65% (1,324) from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 15.20% (7,602) of the population.
Source: Wikipedia
