Dear Editor,
At 7 p.m. August 19 at City Hall, the Hoboken Zoning Board will “review and take action on” Trammel Crow Residential’s application for approval to completely demolish historic Neumann Leathers and scatter the tenants of this, the last viable arts and industry building in Hoboken.
At present there are 30 businesses employing roughly 200 people which occupy three quarters of the space at Neumann. Fifty or so artists and musicians rent to remaining quarter. The complex is Hoboken’s oldest factory building, dating back to the 1870s. It stands as a reminder of the City’s industrial past and is targeted in the revised master plan as a site for historic preservation. Of course, it needs a major face lift, but could be a jewel at our southern portal. It is a link to the past, and at the same time provides an element of diversity in an otherwise monotonous march of condo development.
The Neumann Leathers Tenants Association is crafting a better plan (to be presented soon) that would save most of the existing buildings and their current uses, and create a unique new public space with restaurants, cafes, shops, art gallery, food store, etc. in a inner courtyard or “piazza.” New development, either residential or commercial, would be built primarily in the existing parking lot.
Please join the NLTA and the Friends of Neumann at the August 19 Zoning Board meeting to oppose TCR’s destructive plan. Check the NLTA website, www.neumanntenants.org for updates, and possibly, the timing of TCR’s application in the ZB hearing
Tim Daly