Hoboken Tenement Fires, 1979-1983

Dylan Gottlieb, Hoboken Is Burning: Yuppies, Arson, and Displacement in the Postindustrial City, Journal of American History, Volume 106, Issue 2, September 2019, Pages 390–416, https://doi.org/10.1093/jahist/jaz346

Extract:

Between 1978 and 1983, nearly five hundred fires ripped through tenements and rooming houses in the square-mile city of Hoboken, New Jersey. The blazes killed fifty-five people and left more than eight thousand homeless. Almost all of the displaced residents were Puerto Rican; most never returned to Hoboken. Nearly every fire, investigators determined, had been the result of arson.

This rash of destruction, dislocation, and death occurred alongside another dramatic story: a transformation the local and national press hailed as the “Hoboken Renaissance.” Beginning in the late 1960s, the traditionally working-class city of 45,000, located just across the Hudson River from Manhattan, experienced a sudden influx of middle-income people. Homesteaders looking for historic brownstones made up the first wave of the “Renaissance.” By the end of the 1970s, thousands of young professionals joined them, attracted to Hoboken more for its proximity to Wall Street and corporate headquarters than for its distinctive architecture.

You can also download the article here. You can read an interview with Gottlieb here.