Ron Hine | FBW | March 13, 2023 It takes me less than 15 minutes to walk to my office in the old, industrial Neumann Leathers Building at Hoboken’s southern border. My apartment is just around the corner from Church Square Park and the Hoboken Public Library. Within a several block [...]
Recent development trends contradict what has made the “miracle mile” a special place Image 1: Traditional Hoboken development with many lots/buildings facing perimeter of blocks. Image 2: Row of brick homes lining Bloomfield Street, Hoboken. Image 3: Hopkins plat map of 1909 at [...]
Shade trees also play a vital role in combating climate change Hoboken’s first parks -- Church Square, Columbus, Stevens and Elysian -- dating from the late 1880s to 1912, all contain London plane trees. What remarkable foresight the city leaders of that era had, as their investment has lasted [...]
FBW | October 15, 2021 In her influential book The Death and Life of Great American Cities published in 1961, Jane Jacobs relates the important lessons of her Greenwich Village neighborhood. The mix of residential and retail, closely-spaced and hugging the sidewalk and the street, results in [...]
Shade trees also play a vital role in combating climate change FBW | July 1, 2021 Dense urban areas like Hoboken get hotter than suburban and rural areas. The sun heats up the hard surfaces of the brick, glass, concrete and asphalt. These structures absorb and reflect the [...]
Extending a similar landscape design to the north would make Hoboken’s waterfront truly exceptional The rows of trees lining the promenade along Hoboken's South Waterfront reflects the importance of trees in urban design. FBW | June 8, 2021 For four blocks at Hoboken’s South Waterfront from Newark to [...]
Hoboken City Council will cast final vote on North End Plan on Wed. night March 3 at 7 pm. Image 1: Hoboken's turn-of-the-century five-story walkups on Washington St. south of Newark St. Image 2: The North End Redevelopment Plan: rendering of buildings along 15th Street looking east. Image [...]
An amended North End Plan will go back to a first reading/vote by the Hoboken City Council on Wed. night February 17 at 7 pm. Image 1: North End Redevelopment Plan: massing illustration. Image 2: North End Redevelopment Plan: rendering of building along 15th Street looking east. Image [...]
More photos: Liberty Harbor North in Jersey City, New Jersey – July 2020 Photo 1: New urbanist development in Jersey City at Liberty Harbor North. Photo 2: The street layout for Liberty Harbor North. Photo 3: Additional townhouse development at Liberty Harbor North. FBW | July 28, 2020 Some of [...]
Read the story: Liberty Harbor North at Jersey City waterfront based on the tenets of new urbanism Townhouse development at Liberty Harbor North is based on scale and character of surrounding historic Downtown Jersey City neighborhoods. Liberty Harbor North original street plan adopted by City of Jersey City in 2001 creating [...]
Photo 1: The newly built Ellipse, a luxury residential 44-story tower, on a pier at Jersey City's Newport waterfront. Photo 2: Bird-eye view of Hoboken's South Waterfront with a waterfront park clearly delineated from upland blocks of private development by last north-south street. Photo 3: Private gated community at North Bergen's [...]
Sidewalk Labs' former plan for the Toronto lakefront, aimed to make Toronto the global hub for urban innovation but failed to delineate public space at the water's edge from upland private development. By Craig Whitaker | Craig Whitaker Architects | May 27, 2020 The recent announcement that Sidewalks Lab was abandoning its [...]
Burning Man's Black Rock City in the Nevada desert Amid the desert orgies, Paul Romer investigates a provocative question: Is this bacchanal a model of urban planning? When FBW began its Plan for the Hoboken Waterfront in 1990, the first advice we got was to extend the public street grid to the [...]
Pier 40 on the west side of Manhattan Craig Whitaker | June 25, 2019 Building an 880,000 square-foot office building atop Pier 40 in the Hudson River is a terrible idea. An even worse idea is Councilwoman Deborah Glick’s hope that a compromise reducing the size to 700,000 square feet should be [...]
This article is an excerpt from Reclaiming the Waterfront, A Planning Guide for Waterfront Municipalities published by the Fund for a Better Waterfront in August 1996. The street. It is the river of life of the city, the place where we come together, the pathway to the center. It is the [...]
Detail from the Commissioner's Plan of 1811 for Manhattan. This plan was laid out over a hundred years before the last parcels were developed at the northern end of the island. This article is an excerpt from Reclaiming the Waterfront, A Planning Guide for Waterfront Municipalities published by the Fund for a Better Waterfront [...]
Map of the City of Hoboken from the late 1800s showing the expansion of Col. John Stevens original street grid for Hoboken of 1804. This article is an excerpt from Reclaiming the Waterfront, A Planning Guide for Waterfront Municipalities published by the Fund for a Better Waterfront in August 1996. [...]
FBW | July 18, 2014 In 1990, FBW began to develop its Plan for the Hoboken Waterfront. The first step in the planning process was to extend Hoboken’s traditional street grid to the waterfront. Designating where streets will be located is the fundamental first step of any rational city planning process. It determines the [...]
FBW | September 11, 2013 10/23/2014 Update: FBW honored Craig Whitaker at its Connect the Waterfront event, presenting him with the FBW Riparian Award, in recognition for his lasting impact on the Hudson River waterfront. Mr. Whitaker has guided the advocacy work of FBW through planning principles that have ensured a continuous, public waterfront [...]
Excerpt from Putting the Public Trust Doctrine to Work, Coastal States Organization. In 1820, a New Jersey man was collecting oysters along the shores when he was challenged as a trespasser by the upland property owner. The dispute reached the New Jersey Supreme Court, where a justice expressed surprise [...]
