Hoboken Streets and Gas

The title of this blog was inspired by my love of finding old anachronistic pieces sticking out of the modern landscape; specifically, my love of cobblestone pavement. There was no cobblestone pavement out in the suburbs where I lived, but in Hoboken there were streets here and there that were still paved with them. Even on the streets which were paved over with tarmac, you could sometimes see the original cobblestone pavement where the newer pavement had cracked and worn away. So blue-grey and enduring. And bumpy. They're pretty but bumpy.

14th Street in Hoboken is an example of such a street, at least right now. With the Viaduct to its immediate north, not much traffic finds its way on the eastbound one-way street. Redevelopment of this end of Hoboken has been fierce in the last few years, and you can see some of the newer buildings in this photo. The adjacent lot is seeing the development and construction of a new mixed use project by Advance Realty, appropriately called Willow14 which rumor says will include a McDonalds. This would be great for those residents on the north end of the Mile Square who can't be arsed to trek down Washington Street for their McNugget fix.

Well it won't be done until 2013 thanks to the presence of pesky ground contaminants, which need to be cleaned up first before anything is built. The lot, like most properties on this end of Hoboken, was used in an industrial capacity for over a century. In this case, it was originally a gas works or something of the sort. I recall there being a Gulf station there, or maybe it was Exxon? I really don't remember too well. There is a semantic difference between gas and gasoline, but unless you're a science nerd it doesn't make a difference.
The point of this post, I suppose, is that hopefully all those bad carcinogens will be leeched out of the ground, the McDonald's will serve really good french fries, and the cobblestones will stand their guard. If experience has shown anything, the last one will definitely be true.