Spend any amount of time talking urban design with Craig Whitaker, and he will tell you that the numbers people think matter don’t really matter. “A lot of the arguments [about future development] focus on the numbers,” the New York-based architect and former professor in the NYU Graduate Planning Program said, “the acres of, the miles of, the height of, and usually they are far less important than the character.”
Take Hoboken’s South Waterfront, the three-block area developed by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey in a public/private partnership with the city. The open space it created is far less than the 40 percent advocates had sought in a failed referendum over the Port Authority land in the late 1980s, and yet the promenade and piers are hailed worldwide today as a vibrant and truly public waterfront.
“The street gives you the sense that it is public.”—Craig Whitaker
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It is thanks in no small part to Whitaker’s belief in character over computation that Hoboken is now known for its waterfront parks.
Whitaker was first brought to Hoboken by the Fund for a Better Waterfront (FBW) after a 1990 referendum blocked a joint city-Port Authority plan to build massive office buildings on the South Waterfront piers. He was subsequently hired by FBW to produce an alternative master plan for the waterfront, which eventually became the guiding vision behind the redevelopment plan that produced Pier A Park, Pier C Park, and Sinatra Park.
In recognition of the crucial role he played in protecting and enhancing Hoboken’s urban character, Whitaker was given the first-ever FBW Riparian Award at a ceremony last month. Despite this honor, Whitaker is more interested in completing the master plan that the South Waterfront redevelopment started than he is in reveling at FBW’s past successes (though he has had several contracts with FBW in the past, Whitaker currently serves as an unpaid advisor to the group).
The open space funding provided by Port Authority as part of the South Waterfront Redevelopment only extends as far north as Fourth Street. The waterfront north of that area remains largely owned by private entities, and its future as a public space depends on how the city handles looming questions like the Monarch pier, Union Dry Dock, and the redesign of Sinatra Drive.
Sinatra Drive
Compared to the multifarious alternatives for the redesign of Sinatra Drive presented by city contractor Kimley Horn this past fall, Whitaker and FBW’s own concept for how Sinatra Drive should be changed is pleasing in its simplicity. Whitaker thinks the area should be returned to the original Hoboken street grid drawn by Col. John Stevens by straightening Sinatra Drive, Fourth Street, and Fifth Street and making them meet at right angles. Just these steps, said Whitaker, will make everything fall into place.
Cutting Fourth Street straight down to the water, as it did in Col. Stevens’ street grid, would restore Stevens Park to its original dimensions, adding at least a half acre of new open space in the process. Straightening Sinatra Drive would also allow Hoboken to once again have a regulation Little League baseball field in Stevens Park. In order to make room for Sinatra Drive, the left field foul line is currently clipped down to 175 feet, 25 feet less than a regulation line.
If Stevens Park was made whole again, said Whitaker, the foul lines could easily extend a full 225 feet, like they do at the Little League World Series field in South Williamsport, Pa. In a city that promotes itself as the birthplace of baseball, said Whitaker, “this would really be terrific politics for the mayor.”
The main obstacle, both physically and politically, to FBW’s plan is Hoboken’s World War II Veterans Memorial, which lies directly in the path of a straightened Sinatra Drive just north of Fourth Street. In the past, Mayor Dawn Zimmer has characterized moving the memorial as a non-starter.
If that opposition is based on catering to the concerns of veterans, FBW says it may be off base.
“We have a lot of discussions with the vets,” said FBW Executive Director Ron Hine, “and except for one or two of them, we found them to be fairly open to the idea of reconfiguring.”
Since moving the monument would be a necessary part of reconfiguring the Sinatra Drive roadway, said Whitaker, the tab could likely be picked up by New Jersey’s transportation improvement program.
“The game is always going to the next deepest set of pockets,” said Whitaker. “You don’t want to get tarred with having to pay for this.”
The Monarch project
Like many of the vocal open space advocates in Hoboken, Whitaker and the Fund for a Better Waterfront are opposed to the plans by Ironstate Development to build two 11-story towers on a pier at the northeastern tip of Hoboken. In addition to imploding the public character of the waterfront that FBW has fought to cultivate for the last 20 years, said Whitaker, the proposed Monarch at Shipyard project would place its future residents in an inherently precarious situation. Before the colossal threat of flooding in future storm events is even taken into consideration, said Whitaker, building on piers is risky and expensive.
“When you’re building on a pier, you’re building in what engineers call a High Hazard Zone,” said Whitaker. “It means you’re taking on an IOU. You need to set up a capitalized maintenance fund because you’re going to need to keep redoing it. It doesn’t matter whether you put in sleeves or electric current to keep the marine borer [shipworms] off.”
As a result, Whitaker doesn’t want Ironstate to return to the original plan it agreed to in 1997, which called for private tennis courts and an extension of the Hudson River Waterfront Walkway on the Monarch pier. He said the city should insist that the money Ironstate would have been spent on turning the pier into a tennis pavilion—an estimated $20 million—should instead go towards buying Union Dry Dock, Hoboken’s last active shipyard, and turning it into a park.
“At this point, [Ironstate is] between a rock and hard place,” said Hine, noting that the Hudson County Board of Chosen Freeholders recently upheld its Planning Board’s 2012 rejection of the Monarch project. “If [Ironstate] lose one more battle in court, then they’re going to have to figure something out,” he added.