(rshsdepot) Hoboken, NJ (Hoboken Terminal)

[I95BERNIEW_@_aol.com]

From today's Jersey Journal.
 
Bernie Wagenblast
 
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++


 
 


Clock tower rising in Hoboken 

 


Thursday, June 21, 2007  
 
By CARLY BALDWIN

JOURNAL STAFF WRITER 
HOBOKEN - As they hop on the PATH for work each morning, commuters may notice 
 the 120-foot-tall steel structure standing on top of the green copper train  
terminal.  
The steel beams are the base of the new Hoboken clock tower, part of NJ  
Transit's $115 million renovation of Hoboken Terminal. NJ Transit is also  
preparing to reopen ferry service, which has not run out of the actual terminal  
since 1967.  


The restoration is expected to be complete by the spring of 2009. Some 50,000 
 daily commuters use the 100-year-old terminal, which is on the state and  
national historic registers.  
"Our options were to let it rot and fall in the river and we didn't want to  
do that," said Frank Smolar, NJ Transit's director of capital projects. "This 
is  a landmark building. This is the only ferry terminal on the Jersey side of 
the  river where (people) can get train, light rail and subway connections."  
Ferries will run out of five new slips and shops and restaurants will also be 
 opened at the terminal. NY Waterways will operate boats at the terminal, but 
 there may be other ferry lines there in the future, said Smolar.  
A sixth slip will be used as a museum to showcase old gangplanks and walkways 
 from ferries from the turn of the last century.  
"We want to make this a destination," said Smolar. "There's an aesthetic  
value, an appreciation of the history of this building that we want to  
preserve."  
The clock tower will be finished next spring and will be an exact replica of  
the original, which was built in 1907 in the Beaux-Arts style. Standing 230 
feet  tall, the tower will be illuminated at night and should be visible from 
New York  and along the Hudson County waterfront.  
Like the original, which was taken down after a storm in the 1950s, the clock 
 tower will be have clocks on all four sides and feature 4-foot backlit 
letters  spelling the word "Lackawanna" on four sides as well.  
Ferries first started bringing wealthy New Yorkers to summer vacation homes  
in Hoboken in 1811. Almost a hundred years later, Hoboken Terminal was  
constructed in 1907 by the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad, which  also took 
over operation of the ferries, said David Koenig, historic  preservation 
specialist at NJ Transit.  
In addition to passengers, Lackawanna trains shipped anthracite coal from  
Pennsylvania's Lackawanna Valley to Hoboken.  
But the creation of the Hudson and Manhattan Tubes - the predecessor of the  
PATH system - in 1908 and later the opening of the Holland Tunnel in 1927 took 
 riders off the ferries and trains.  
Train service continued to run, but Lackawanna shut down the ferries in 1967. 
 
In 1975, the state Department of Transportation bought the terminal and  
started subsidizing rail lines. Ferry service started up again in 1989 out of a  
temporary spot in the former Immigrant and Pullman building, at the far south  
end of the terminal. 




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