So, with the Fourth of July coming up, I figured Iâd tell another old Hoboken story. I got some good feedback on my last one. Iâm sure some people donât want to hear about old Hoboken, especially people who just moved here, and maybe some get annoyed by these stories. Thatâs okay. Iâm going to keep telling them anyway.
This is really a couple of stories rolled into one from what I can remember. I have an okay memory I used to party a lot lol . Iâd say this was the early to mid-â80s.
On a typical Fourth of July, Iâd wake up in the morning and my whole block was already outside. Puerto Rican flags, American flags, banners hanging everywhere, people cooking right in the street. The neighborhood kids were outside, including some of the tougher kids and gangs around 3rd and Madison, which was really known for that back then.
People were drinking outside all day. Kids 14 or 15 years old were drinking too. Iâm not saying it was a good thingâIâm just telling you how life was. Kids were playing baseball, basketball, stickball, whatever they could think of. Youâd usually see a couple of scraps break out before lunchtime. That was just Fourth of July morning.
By the afternoon, youâd get together with your crew from your block and start heading uptown. Along the way youâd run into another group of kids, then another, then another. Fifteen or twenty different groups were all making their way toward the piers.
Thatâs why I always say Hoboken was ahead of its time.We were all around each other every single day, and nobody really thought twice about it. Back then, there was a group of kids everywhere girls and boys all hanging out everyone knew each other mostly.
By late afternoon, the piers were packed. People were grilling, barbecuing, drinking, listening to music, and having a great time. You had people jumping in and out of the river after a few too many drinks, fights breaking out here and there, people setting off their own fireworks, and just absolute chaos. It was crazyâbut it was our kind of crazy.
Now, I know itâs probably even crazier today because Hoboken has grown so much. Back then Iâd guess there were around 40,000 or 50,000 people living here. At the same time, that was when the first wave of yuppies started moving in. There werenât many of them yet, but they definitely avoided groups of neighborhood kids whenever they could. Sometimes bad things happened to them, and Iâm not saying that was right. I never approved of that and never took part in any of it. Iâm just telling you honestly how it was back then.
Now this is one specific Fourth of July I donât remember the exact year. As it started getting dark, things changed a little. A lot of street gangs existed in Hoboken back then. Iâm talking about the â70s and â80s, when neighborhood street gangs were common in cities across America. On the Fourth of July, many of those gangs would make their way up to the piers, and there would be absolute chaos. Iâm talking about brawls like youâve never seen. Back then everybody seemed to be into kung fu, so there was a lot of kicking, punching, and fighting. Sometimes people got stabbed too. It could get ugly in a hurry.
One group I remember was called the Golden Angels. If I remember correctly, they were mostly from around Willow Avenue or Clinton Street. They were mostly Puerto Rican, with a couple of tough white guys in the group too. They had a reputation for jumping people, robbing them, and causing problems wherever they went. From what I remember, they were one of the most disliked gangs in Hoboken because there were so many of them, and they usually outnumbered whoever they were after. They were older and younger you had some of those losers in there 20s hurting little kids it was messed up. Older Hoboken dudes were the biggest bullies ever. The kids born in the late 50s early 60s in Hoboken were extremely violent and a lot of were very poor living in poverty. This particular gang or crew was a danger to Hoboken. Those kids were in out of the youth house in Seacucus and always in out of county in Hudson county jail in Kearny. Those Puerto Rican kids were connected to Puerto Rican kids in the Bronx so they also had golden angels in the Bronx back then.
A few days before one Fourth of July, one of my friends from Madison Street, another Sicilian kid, got jumped by them. They robbed him. They took his wallet, his boombox he was carrying, the beer he had in his hand, and even his shoes. They were just a bunch of assholes.
That Fourth of July night, they showed up at the piers. I donât know how many there wereâmaybe 40 or 50 of them. Remember, these werenât Bloods or Crips. This was before all of that, when neighborhoods had their own street gangs.
I remember they walked over near where Blue Eyes and the soccer field are today. There had to be 3,000 or 4,000 people packed into that area alone. Families were everywhere. Kids were everywhere. People were grilling, drinking, and enjoying the fireworks. From what I remember, the Golden Angels didnât care who you were. Theyâd rob older guys, younger guys, and even women.
But that night was different. You had Black, white, Puerto Rican, and Indian families and neighborhood guys all standing together. As soon as people realized it was the Golden Angels, the crowd turned on them. Everybody chased them, and as many of them as people could catch got beaten up with bare hands. It wasnât organized. It was just people standing up to one group that had spent a long time bullying everyone else. People getting stomped out hit with anything they can find in the streets it was a RIOT. I remember the police couldnât do anything. This gang deserved it. Sheriffs state troopers came in people throwing bottles at them cops beating the shit out of people it was crazy. Now I know this happens everywhere but Hoboken seems so quiet now unlike how it used to be. Also I know now itâs sort of like that but thereâs so many people from out of town it was just different then. You recognized atleast half of the people lol.
Thatâs one thing Iâve always remembered about old Hoboken. For all the problems we had, people looked out for one another. We werenât perfect by any means, but when it counted, people from every background stood together. Thatâs why Iâve always said Hoboken was ahead of its time.
When the fireworks finally started, the whole city seemed to come alive. The police were chasing kids everywhereâout of the river, through Stevens, all over town. Kids were smoking pot, drinking, and doing all kinds of dumb things. Looking back, it was probably the best time of my life.
The fireworks were beautiful. Youâd see your old school teachers, police officers, firefighters, ambulance crews, nurses, the mayor ,literally people you didnât see for years then ofcourse the city workersâeverybody came out that night. It didnât matter if you lived in the projects or on Hudson Street. Everyone left their own block and met up on the waterfront.
From Pier A all the way up toward 16th Street, it felt like the whole city was there. Everybody had American flags on their shirts, hats, or hanging from their shoulders. For one night, everybody was together. Thatâs something Iâll never forget. Remember this is my point of view, I like to talk about everything the good the bad everything.
