The year 2001 promises to look less like Stanley Kubrick’s space odyssey and more like an early ’80s suburban middle school dance. According to fashion pundits – who are a lot like political pundits only they have better hair – next year we should expect to see lots of Izod shirts and pleated skirts and a host of other preppy patterns. We should also expect to see lots of Regis Philbin along with CBS’s newest Survivors, but less of Rosie O’Donnell, who told Diane Sawyer she wants to retire.
Contrary to country’s potentially vast cultural changes, here in Hudson County it looks like the usual fun and festive fare in the year 2001.”We’re hoping to move forward with business as usual,” said Jersey City’s director of cultural affairs Jesse Correa. “We’re hoping to have a calendar that is as full as the last couple of years.”
Correra said that the calendar will include Liberty State Park summer festivals on Sundays and Tuesdays, gazebo concerts at local parks on Wednesdays and Thursdays, a Martin Luther King Oratory and various special events like local festivals and block parties. She also added that as OpSail fades into a distant memory, the city plans to once again host a Fourth of July festivity.
According to the president of Pro Arts, Charles Kessler, the eight-block downtown Jersey City warehouse district known as WALDO is well on its way to being developed. The area, located south of the Newport Centre Mall, was recently rezoned so artists can live in the buildings where many now have studio space.
“We need developers to bring the buildings up to code,” explained Kessler. “And for the first time we’re getting a lot of interest on the part of developers. So I’m hopeful that something is going to finally happen.”
Kessler was also enthusiastic about the 2001 Artists’ Studio Tour.
“We’ve got a lot of new blood that has joined the community,” he said. “And we’ve organized some fundraisers. We’re hoping that next year’s tour will be better than ever.”
Geri Fallo, Hoboken’s director of cultural affairs, was equally enthusiastic about the mile-square city’s 2001 cultural calendar.
“We will continue to produce the same wonderful events that we did last year,” Fallo said, specifically citing the spring and fall Art and Music Festivals, summer concerts in the parks, Shakespeare performances in the parks and Movies Under the Stars.
According to Fallo, the city also plans to repeat the staged reading of On the Waterfront in Frank Sinatra Park, an event that was inaugurated last August when the film’s screenwriter, Budd Schulberg, along with two members from the original movie were part of question and answer panel that followed the performance.
“We’re going the make that a yearly event, with the blessing of Budd Schulberg,” said Fallo.
Last year, Hudson County’s cultural life was enhanced with the opening of Debaun Auditorium on the campus of Stevens Institute of Technology, the opening of the multiplex theater at the Columbia Shopping Center on Kennedy Boulevard in North Bergen, and the inclusion of Indian films into the regular repertoire of North Bergen Plaza’s Regal Cinemas.
This coming year, the Hoboken Historical Museum is expected to officially open its space in the Shipyard development on the northern waterfront. In Secaucus, a new exposition center may break ground.
The local rock ‘n’ roll scene is also flourishing. Over the last year, Maxwell’s has been able to lure musicians like Alex Chilton, Evan Dando and Elliott Smith to our not so quiet county. And Todd Abramson, one of the club’s co-owners and the man responsible for booking the bands, is even more optimistic about the upcoming year.
“I’m very pleased with the progress we’ve made since reopening,” Abramson said last week. “And I think the band schedule will be better than ever in the year 2001.”
The county’s weekly arts and entertainment newspaper, the Current, will continue to provide interviews and profiles of artists who live or visit here, not to mention intriguing photos and essays. (Check it out at www.hudsoncurrent.com.)
“Art and culture are moving along very nicely,” said Fallo. “There is only one way to grow, and that is up. And as the city grows, so will its cultural aspects.”