WILLOW TERRACE, Hoboken

by Kevin Walsh

Willow Terrace, between Clinton Street, Willow Avenue and 6th and 7th Streets, looks much as it did in 1880 when it was constructed by the Stevens family (of Stevens Institute fame) for laborers working on the nearby institute. Stevens Institute, founded in 1870, is America’s first college of mechanical engineering. It commands a spectacular view of New York City from its perch on Castle Point.

Willow Terrace retains its brick pavement as well as several picturesquely tiny brick cottages.

Longtime Terrace resident Joan Cunning has recently published a memoir with the Hoboken Historical Museum of her time living on the Terrace.

1/18/13

3 comments

chris January 17, 2013 - 4:35 pm

Somebody actually lives up on the 3rd floor of those buildings with the roofs like that?
You’d have to be a midget

Reply
Bill January 18, 2013 - 12:32 pm

My room in the Willow Terrace house I co-rented was on the third floor (actually, it WAS the third floor). Cozy in the winter, even though the only heat source in the house was on the first floor, and a sweatbath all summer. I’m 6 feet tall and could stand upright in about half of the space. Shortly after we moved out, the house was completely gutted and renovated. Only the facade remains from what we lived in, and the third floor was enlarged to be the same size as the two below (i.e., no more Federal look to the house anymore). There is no historic designation to prevent the houses from having their appearances change as a result of renovation.

Reply
Bill January 18, 2013 - 8:55 am

I lived on the row of the terrace that fronts on Seventh Street* from 1994 to 1998. Even though it appeared to be on Seventh street, and physically was on Seventh, it had Willow Terrace as its address. This caused no end of problems with deliveries and sometimes mail, because the numbers on the Willow Terrace houses duplicate numbers of residences on Seventh Street that are farther east. I never had to call 911 while I lived there, but I’m curious as to whether even the authorities could figure it out.

*Willow Terrace has five rows. Four of them front on two private, alley-like streets, while one fronts on Seventh.

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