Office of Student Life: HOBOKEN

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Office of Student Life: Student HANDBOOK

HOBOKEN

Stevens is a major part of one of the most rapidly changing cities in New Jersey. Only a mile square, Hoboken is a diverse community that for more than a decade has been undergoing a renaissance. Once a waterfront town like the one described in "On the Waterfront" (filmed, incidentally, in Hoboken), it is changing to accommodate a new population of young, urban professionals attracted by the century-old brownstones, community feeling, and proximity to Manhattan.

It isn't necessary to go across the Hudson for fun (although most Hobokenites frequent the Big Apple). Take a stroll through Hoboken and just explore. For history, visit NJ Transit's Hoboken Terminal on Hudson Place, listed in the National Register of Historic Places, or visit Elysian Park, between 10th and 11th Streets and Hudson Street, or visit the site of the first demonstration of a steam railroad in the United States at 56 Newark Street at Hudson Street. Other Hoboken streets have some of the most beautiful architecture around. From the estates on Castle Point Terrace built to overlook the Hudson to the brownstones on Bloomfield Street to the "A" Building and Gatehouse on the Stevens campus, you're sure to find something to intrigue you.

The True Origin of Baseball
On June 19, 1846, at Elysian Fields, on a peaceful meadow nestled beside the banks of the Hudson River in Hoboken, two teams - the Knickerbockers and the New York Club at Elysian Fields, met to play a new and radical form of various bat-and-ball games that were popular at the time and, there gave birth to America's national pastime.

Why did the Knickerbocker Baseball Club of New York pick Hoboken as its home field for the four years of its existence? Probably because the New York team was quick to see that development had taken all the available playing sites from Manhattan. So they got on a ferry and headed for Hoboken.

TThe Knickerbocker Club became the model upon which all the other early clubs were organized. So dominant was the Knickerbocker Club during the 1840's and 1850's, that they transformed Elysian Fields into the first great center of baseball activity in the United States.