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HOBOKEN,
NJ, December 9, 2003
Mayor David Roberts announced
at a signing ceremony today that
Daniel Gans
and George Vallone, the developers
of the Maxwell House
Property, will be donating a new waterfront
park to the city of Hoboken. With 10 acres of water and 6
acres of land, this park will be the largest open space
in the City. Mayor Roberts called this effort,
“
The largest Public / Private open space initiative ever in
Hoboken”.
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The park will come complete with the waterfront walkway mandated
by the
State of New Jersey. Eventually this walkway will extend
all along the
Hudson River’s edge from Fort Lee to Bayonne. Mayor
Roberts said that
“
completion of the Maxwell House portion of Hoboken’s
Waterfront Walkway will add the largest missing segment (over
2,500 linear feet will be
constructed) and will put Hoboken in the enviable position
of being within
just the small fraction of total completion of it’s
entire waterfront
walkway”.
The six acres of land and open space will have five major components.
The
first component, a historic recreation of an old fashioned
baseball field
will be constructed on the very site where most historians
believe the first
baseball game was played, on July 19,1846. |
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Copyright © Dean
Marchetto
and Associates Architects |
The second
component of the new park will be the complete refurbishment
of the Twelfth St. Pier. Once the Twelfth St. Pier building
(which rises almost 40 feet above the water and covers the
entire pier at present) is removed, it will open up a new
view corridor at the eastern end of Twelfth Street.
It will be restored as a multi-purpose pier. Jutting out
over 500 feet into the river, it will be ideal for viewing
the NYC skyline and fishing. It will also have the capability
built-in (with the
preservation of the original large vessel tie down equipment
and with
the gates to be installed along the south side of the pier)
to be able to accommodate
historic ships, visiting science boats, and museum barges
for educational and cultural visits to our city.
The Platform, which runs from Twelfth St. to Eleventh St.
at the shoreline,
is the third component of the new park. It will also be restored
and will
be used as a public gathering and viewing area. At the Hoboken
Fire
Department’s request, the Developers will be constructing
a drafting station
on the south end of the platform. Captain Robert Falco, who
requested the
improvement, believes it will give the fire department a
greater capability
to draw water from the river to be used in firefighting situations.
The fourth component of the park will be the conversion of
the Peninsula,
which is over two acres in size, to an open grass field with
a tree grove
with picnic tables underneath. The Peninsula will also have
an emergency
boat launch at the eastern tip that will be used for police
and fire rescue
boats.
The fifth component of the park will be the continued restoration
of the
natural sand beach at the Tenth St. cove. The Mayor said “although
Danny and George have opened the beach and peninsula to the
public on special
occasions, the public has had no other access to the beach
since it was
taken over by industrial interests in the early 1900’s”.
An important
feature of the beach will be the construction of a boathouse
for kayaks and
small craft storage. This boathouse will be built as a replica
of the first
New York Yacht Club, which originally occupied the very same
site in 1845.
The Developers plan to provide kayaks and small sailboats
with instructions,
for use of the town's people, free of charge.
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