Art for our sake

Hoboken hosted its annual fall arts and music festival last weekend with over 300 vendors and thousands of attendees.
Vendors offered food including waffles, steak sandwiches, lemonade, and creative goods including clothing, photographs, jewelry, furniture, and more.
Children enjoyed creating sand art, riding rides, having their faces painted, dancing to musicians, and jumping in a bounce house.
Musicians played on three stages located throughout the eight block fair on Hoboken’s main drag on Washington Street. The lead act was Spyro Gyra.
With all these distractions, attendees may or may not have noticed an increased police presence at this year’s festival. According to Chief Ken Ferrante, the police presence was almost doubled this year.
Although Hoboken had not received any credible threats to the fair or its city, Ferrante decided to increase the police presence in light of the recent terrorist attacks at Seaside Heights and the bombs in Chelsea.
“Last year we had maybe half of the officers we used this year,” said Ferrante.
Ferrante said he had 16 uniformed officers patrolling the festival, which doesn’t include the traffic and plan clothes and undercover officers he also had at the festival.
Ferrante said they took additional measures by having the K-9 unit from the Jersey City Police Department as well as additional support from the Hudson County Prosecutor’s Office.