A home for our past

Hoboken museum sets sights on archival space as 30th anniversary nears

Where is the city’s history stored?
Although Hoboken Historical Museum organizers asked that the details remain hidden, it’s stored in an innocuous storage room in a Shipyard building in the north part of town.
“The space is bursting at the seams,” is how museum communications coordinator Melissa Abernathy puts it.
And that’s no exaggeration. Over 100,000 relics make up the archival space but only 87,000 can be found on the museum’s website at www.hobokenmuseum.org and roughly 30,000 haven’t been catalogued at all. These range from World War I German soldier helmets, bundled up maps, a book collection, brown paper-wrapped picture and photo frames of the 1800’s, costumes, and items from former museum exhibitions.

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“The space is bursting at the seams.” – Melissa Abernathy
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The Hoboken Historical Museum, founded in May 1986, will hold “Elysian Fields Escapade,” a celebration for its 30th anniversary, on May 14, in part to raise funds to open a proper 3,000 square foot space.
“Our goal [during the anniversary celebration] is to increase our archival storage space facility,” said Bob Foster, museum director, while touring the current space. “It could possibly have an exhibit component and allow people to come in an observe some of the artifacts.”
The campaign to fund a new storage space is being conducted in honor of late Collections Manager David Webster, who died last July. Among other initiatives, Webster pushed the museum to embrace new technologies, acquire and create a register for the artifacts, and curate stunning exhibits.
“We definitely want to make David proud,” said new Collections Manager Rand Hoppe.
The museum has currently raised approximately $25,000 and has a fundraising goal of $100,000. The new space would not simply store the museum’s priceless heirlooms, but maintain them through climate-control and allow researchers to catalogue them properly.
The fundraising gala will be held on May 14 at the Elks Club, 1005 Washington St., from 7 to 11 p.m.

The rest is history

Hoboken’s manufacturing past is clearly evoked by the throng of museum artifacts. A Wonder Bread crate tops a shelf in the rear of the space and empty glass bottles line multiple shelves from milk and brewery factories alike.
Signage of the city’s old Lipton Tea and Maxwell Coffee House production plants, as well as the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation that dominated the northern portions of the city’s dry docks, haven’t been forgotten either.
Although not in the space due to its size, the museum also has as 12-foot high drop of coffee that was part of the Maxwell’s “Good to the last drop” sign that stood on the waterfront from 1938 to 1993.
Hoppe says the museum has a substantial amount of Hoboken court records, mug shots from decades ago “for mostly disorderly conduct,” phone lists, sheet music, matchbooks, tools, scripts, sculptures, and post cards.
“We want to accommodate all we have here but who knows, it could become as popular as the exhibit,” said Foster. “The idea would also be to possibly rotate some of our past exhibits.”
As part of the celebration, the museum will recreate the Mile Square City’s “bygone era” at the Elks Club reminiscent of moonlit walks along the Hudson River, picnics on the grass before Sybil’s Cave (the oldest manmade structure in Hoboken built in 1832) and plenty to remind attendees that America’s first organized game of baseball was said to have been played on Elysian Field in Hoboken in 1846.
Guests will enjoy a buffet courtesy of AD Catering and an open bar.
An auction will have attendees vying for a summer pass to the city’s shipyard pool, a year of indoor parking, an evening of whiskey-tasting for a party of 10, a two-week stay in Pompano Beach, Fla., and a vacation in Winter Park, Colorado.
Ahead of the gala the museum is encouraging locals to decorate and display a “Miss Vicky” in the spirit of the upcoming Victorian-style celebration. The winner of the competition will receive a pair of tickets to the event, with Little City Books and Hudson County Art Supply already putting forth their submissions.
Tickets to the event cost $150 and are available at www.hobokenmuseum.org.

Steven Rodas can be reached at srodas@hudsonreporter.com.

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