Dear Neighbors,
Happy New Year everyone!
With 2021’s arrival, now is a good time to reflect on the year gone by and thank some of the people and organizations in our community who made a difference.
2020 — The Year in Review: Giving Thanks
In the past year, we confronted a pandemic and extraordinary fiscal challenges, yet our community came together, supported each other, and accomplished great things together. I’d like to give some shout outs to some folks who helped make it happen.
The Volunteers
First, I want to thank and acknowledge our incredible community volunteers!
Hoboken Front Line Appreciation Group (FLAG) did exceptional work in 2020. In a year when our local restaurants were hard hit and our frontline heroes were stretched like never before 24/7, FLAG stepped up and supported both our front line workers and our local restaurants. By delivering 18,475 meals in 2020, FLAG’s volunteers delivered cheer, support, and food to our amazing frontliners while transferring $165,686 to our local restaurants.
Hoboken Community Center rendered extraordinary service to our community this year with its support of the Hoboken Food Pantry. The Hoboken Community Center, in coordination with the City of Hoboken, provided needy families with more than 9000 bags of groceries and boxes containing perishable USDA farm to table food, cooked meals, hygiene items, baby diapers, and formula. The Hoboken Food Pantry presently serves about 450 households twice a month. Just incredible.
Hoboken CERT team: The members of this all-volunteer organization of community members are trained in helping our community deal with disaster preparedness. Last year, our CERT volunteers stepped up and worked the phones at City Hall for months, scheduling untold numbers of COVID tests for our community. CERT team members also helped the Hoboken Food Pantry pack thousands of meals and in many other ways helped our community navigate the challenges of the COVID pandemic.
In 2020, the Hoboken Relief Fund was established as a 501(c)(3) organization and raised $415,000 for local businesses and individuals adversely impacted by COVID-19. Thanks to the trustees, the more than 700 individual donors, 20 corporate donors, and Applied Development for its $100,000 lead donation to help our community. The Hoboken Relief Fund’s average business grant to our businesses was approximately $4,900, helping businesses when they needed it most.
An extra-special special shout-out goes to the graduating 8th Grade class of 2020 from All Saints Episcopal Day School who donated to the Hoboken Relief Fund the $10,000 they had been raising since they were 4th graders. When the exchange program they had been looking forward to -- a trip to Ecuador -- was canceled because of COVID, they decided that the Hoboken Relief Fund was the place their funds would make the biggest impact on their community. You can read about it here.
The Hoboken Shelter was critical to our community this last year. The Hoboken Shelter houses 50 guests each night, serves over 500 meals daily, hosts 1,000 showers weekly, as well as providing support services including case management, counseling, job and life skills training, creative arts workshops, emergency homelessness prevention grants, and permanent supportive housing solutions to our homeless population, which was so critical in 2020. The Hoboken Arts Committee and its Chair Chris O’Connor helped transform charmless utility boxes on Washington Street into striking canvases of street art, created by local artists, and beautifying our central business district.
Hoboken’s Partners in the Fight Against COVID.
Every single healthcare worker at the Hoboken University Medical Center (HUMC) deserves our appreciation. To the Doctors, the Nurses, the Staff, and the Administration of HUMC, the people of Hoboken cannot thank each of you enough.
The Hoboken Volunteer Ambulance Corp and their 150 volunteers represent the “front line of our front line workers” taking the daily calls and helping our families get first aid and life-saving intervention, so critical during the pandemic. Through this pandemic, they have been critical to our management of COVID in our community.
Riverside Medical Group has worked tirelessly with Hoboken from the beginning of our test regime in April 2020 through our vaccination efforts today allowing us to vaccinate our health care providers in Hoboken. Riverside Medical has been an indispensable partner to the City. Thanks, too, to all the City’s other COVID test partners that have come online throughout 2020 and continue working to provide the test capacity such that we can now offer 3,000 free COVID tests a week (PromptMD, Medicine Man, and Ivee) to help our community manage the latest COVID surge.
Hoboken’s Public Safety Community
We all need to thank Hoboken’s public safety teams for keeping our community safe in 2020.
Police Chief Ken Ferrante and members of the Hoboken Police Department and Fire Chief Brian Crimmins and members of the Hoboken Fire Department have provided extraordinary service in 2020 to our community and kept us safe in these unprecedented times.
The Office of Emergency Management and its leader Sgt. Will Montanez have continued to provide exemplary service, managing the regulations for operations in our local businesses, restaurants, gyms, COVID test centers, and more. We simply couldn’t have done it without Sgt. Montanez and his team.
Hoboken’s Board of Education
The Hoboken Board of Education and the public school district’s Superintendent Dr. Christine Johnson have done a great job managing the extraordinary challenges of COVID in our public schools, protecting our students and the employees of our public school district, while delivering outstanding educational environments for our children.
Mayor Bhalla and his Administration at City Hall
Mayor Bhalla has shown extraordinary leadership throughout 2020. On March 14, he proactively made the call to shut down bars and restaurants and impose a 10 pm curfew in advance of nearly every community in the Country and weeks before Governor Murphy made the same decision for New Jersey. At that time, on CNN, Dr. Ashish Jha, the Director of Harvard’s Global Health Institute, stated “I think Hoboken probably is the model we all need to move towards now.”
Health and Human Services Director Leo Pellegrini was so immersed in the management of the pandemic in our City, it seemed as if he were everywhere. Whether it was administering a massive contact tracing program, coordinating thousands of COVID tests a week, or “putting on his back” the effort to send 60,000 meals to our seniors in April and May when the pandemic first struck, Leo, has done a great job.
Transportation Director Ryan Sharp, on top of his other responsibilities, helped create and actively manage the parklets, strEATeries, Summer Streets, and Slow Streets that became a critical lifeline for our business community.
Parks and Environmental Services Director Jen Gonzalez is a “rock star”. She is always engaged — thoughtfully and proactively managing our parks and environmental services. Whenever I send constituents’ questions her way, Director Gonzalez is always ready and able to engage and address every request.
Communications Director Vijay Chaudhuri did an extraordinary job in 2020, issuing Nixle alerts and updates on behalf of Mayor Bhalla to our City website, keeping our community updated on all things related to COVID testing, vaccinations, the opening and closing of local businesses, and the regulations that were the guardrails for our community on negotiating life with COVID in Hoboken.
Our Activist Community
Finally, here’s to the people in our community who passionately marched for racial justice and
to the folks who spoke out against Hudson County’s relationship with ICE (which you can read about here). Your voices were heard and you made a difference.
Our Artist Community
So many musicians and vocalists performed and brought light and joy into our lives and came into our living rooms during these dark days bringing art, music, and much-missed live performances into our homes.
Our Business Community
In the midst of a pandemic, our local business community adapted, created socially distant sidewalk sales, and complied with many sets of COVID requirements -- all the while providing critical services to our community, despite the myriad challenges presented. In its first year of existence, the Hoboken Business Alliance did a great job supporting Hoboken businesses.
Thanks to the new businesses that took that leap of faith, opened their doors and started serving our community in 2020. Businesses like The Hive, CoolVines, bwe kafe(north end), Souza Fresh, and Sirenetta are just some of the businesses that took a chance on Hoboken in difficult economic times and enhanced our community. Thanks, too, to the vendors and the folks who worked to bring the Hoboken Farmers’ Market to our residents, delivering farm-fresh produce and more in an outdoor, socially-distanced setting.
Thanks to the People of Hoboken
Most importantly, thanks to the residents of the 5th Ward and Hoboken. We made it through an incredibly hard year together. We’ve asked a lot of you this year and you have risen to the challenges. You guys are incredible. I loved my first year on the City Council. Thanks for the honor of letting me represent you and serve our community. Thanks, too, for joining me at my bi-monthly Coffee with Cohen events, for subscribing to and reading my newsletter, and for sending me your regular questions and important feedback.
COVID-19 Updates
Let’s turn to Hoboken’s COVID-19 updates: The number of positive tests in our community has unfortunately substantially increased in the past two weeks. Likewise, New Jersey’s new daily positive cases have risen to levels not seen since May, which caused Governor Murphy to extend the State of Emergency for another 30 days.
Hoboken’s recent spike in positive cases includes 36 on December 31st; 16 on January 1st; and 32 on January 5th. In July we celebrated the landmark of having no COVID patients at Hoboken University Medical Center (HUMC). However, now we have 29 COVID patients at HUMC, including 10 Hoboken residents. If you have any reason to believe you have been exposed to COVID, particularly if you spent time with folks outside your immediate family over the Christmas or New Year’s holidays, please quarantine and then schedule an appointment for a COVID test at least 5-7 days after potential exposure. Please remember that wearing a face mask, practicing social distancing, and avoiding indoor gatherings beyond household members is the key to keeping our community healthy and safe.
Since December, there have been six COVID-19 related deaths in our community. I want to offer my heartfelt condolences to each Hoboken family that has endured this unimaginable pain. Please know that you have the full support of your neighbors and our entire Hoboken community. We send you our prayers and extend to you our wishes for your comfort, healing, and peace.
Free Testing Available for Hoboken Residents: Riverside and Medicine Man
Riverside Medical (351 16th Street)
Dates: Mondays - Saturdays (rest of January)
Time: 8 am – 3 pm
Location: 351 16th Street (Bijou Properties location)
Type of testing: Rapid (Abbott ID Now), and PCR
Who: Hoboken residents only
(appointments typically released online for the following week on Wednesdays)
Note: Riverside Medical Group patients should call their Riverside primary care office to schedule a COVID-19 test and should not use the online sign-up form. Patients without a vehicle should enter the test facility on Clinton between 15th and 16th Streets. Those driving should enter on 16th street between Clinton and Grand.
Medicine Man Pharmacy (605 Jackson St.)
Dates: Wednesdays and Saturdays
Time: 8 am – 12:30 pm
Location: 605 Jackson Street
Type of testing: PCR
Who: Hoboken residents only
PromptMD (Jackson St. Gym, 605 Jackson St.)
Dates: Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays (for the month of January)
Time: 8 am - 3:00 pm
Location: 605 Jackson Street
Type of testing: PCR
Who: Hoboken residents
PromptMD offers PCR testing most days at the City’s 605 Jackson Street location from 8 am until 3 pm. To schedule an appointment - visit www.hobokennj.gov/promptmd. Results are typically provided through Prompt MD within 48-72 hours.
Free Testing for Hoboken Residents and Hoboken Business Employees:
Medicine Man (605 Jackson Street)
Date: Wednesdays and Saturdays (for the month of January)
Time: 2 - 7 pm (Wednesdays), 9 am - 1 pm (Saturdays)
Location: 605 Jackson Street (updated location)
Type of testing: PCR
Who: Hoboken residents, Hoboken business employees
ivee (at Multi-Service Center, 124 Grand St.)
Dates: Every Wednesday (for the month of January)
Time: 8 am – 3:30 pm
Location: Multi-Service Center (124 Grand Street)
Type of testing: PCR
Who: Hoboken residents, Hoboken business employees
When signing up for testing through ivee, you will need to provide your information first and then a link will be sent to you to choose an appointment time. ivee’s PCR test results are emailed within 48-72 hours.
Local Private COVID Test Facilities
In addition to Hoboken’s four free, public COVID-19 facilities, you can visit City MD at 231 Washington Street or PromptMD at 309 1st Street, and walk-in without an appointment to get your COVID-19 test at their private facilities. To be safe, you should call ahead to confirm test availability.
Hoboken’s Vaccination Center
On December 28th, Mayor Bhalla and Dr. Raj Brahmbhatt reported that Hoboken and Riverside Medical Group have collaborated to provide healthcare staff living in Hoboken and Hudson County with COVID vaccinations. The State has provided the vaccine to Hoboken and Hudson County healthcare workers who fall in the 1A category (listed below). Vaccinations for these individuals are administered at Riverside’s 1111 Hudson Street office. All healthcare workers and others who live in Hoboken or Hudson County in category 1A are encouraged to schedule an appointment to receive the vaccine at http://www.hobokennj.gov/vaccine.
People in Category 1A Who Are Presently Qualified for Vaccinations:
- Licensed healthcare professionals like doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and dentists and their staff (like receptionists, janitors, clergy, mortuary services, laboratory technicians)
- Consultants, per diem, and contractors who are not directly employed by these facilities
- Unpaid healthcare workers like health professional students, trainees, volunteers, and essential caregivers
- Community health workers, doulas, and public health professionals like Medical Reserve Corps
- Personnel who work at variable venues such as EMS, paramedics, funeral staff, and autopsy workers
- Other paid or unpaid people who work in a healthcare setting, who may have direct or indirect contact with infectious persons or materials, and who cannot work from home.
- Unpaid persons who work in a healthcare setting. These include, but are not limited to health professional students, trainees, volunteers, and essential caregivers.
Coffee with Cohen . . . the home edition
To practice social distancing, rather than eliminate my monthly Coffee with Cohen constituent events, I turned to the internet. On Monday, I hosted my most recent Coffee with Cohen Livestream event. Already, over 1000 people have viewed this event. This week I was joined by special guest Hoboken Mayor Ravi Bhalla. We discussed COVID testing and the planning for the broad distribution of COVID vaccines. My favorite part of Coffee with Cohen is answering your questions. This week you asked about the future development at 931 Madison Street, the site of the old Water Music Studio. If you haven’t seen it, you can check it out here.
You can submit your questions for my next event to HobokenPhil@gmail.com. I try to answer each question you submit. The event is hosted on my Facebook page @Philcohenforcouncil and you can watch it here. As long as we have this state of emergency, I plan to continue hosting Coffee with Cohen twice a month. My next event will be at noon on Tuesday, January 19th, and I hope to see you there.
In the meantime, you can follow me on Twitter at @philiphcohen here. As always, if you’d like to reach out with any questions or concerns, or if I can be of any assistance to you or your family, please do not hesitate to contact me at HobokenPhil@gmail.com.
Stay safe everyone!
Phil Cohen
5th Ward Councilman
City of Hoboken, New Jersey
HobokenPhil@gmail.com
(862) 234-9053
P.S. You can learn more about me and my ideas for Hoboken (as well as read this newsletter and my prior newsletters) on my website philcohen.org.
