Edwin Duroy, Oral history interview, audio recording.

Interviews
Puerto Ricans--New Jersey
Oral history

The digital audio recording of the oral history interview conducted with Edwin Duroy.

Christopher López.

Interview conducted on October 2, 2022

Courtesy of Christopher López. Copyright held by Christopher López. Restrictions are only in regards to publication; any researcher may view or copy any document in the collection.

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MP3

English

Oral history (digital audio file)

Chris: Were you born in Hoboken?

Edwin: I was born in Puerto Rico but raised here mainly in Hoboken.

Chris: Do you remember the fires?

Edwin: It is a kind of an unresolved chapter in Hoboken's recent history. Given the fact that, nobody was ever prosecuted for, quite frankly for murder or anything along those lines. It it was the county prosecutor who also had a responsibility and the ultimate responsibility, and he just kind of, pooh poohed it. He said, oh, there are other fires. You know, poor people create fires, things like that. You know, when I mentioned, my thoughts begin with a fire on third and Jackson. I lived in the projects on third and Jackson, and there was a Food Town fire. I think it occurred in 1970 or 71. It was, again, a Food Town in the area. A supermarket for that particular area, midsize. But it serviced that whole western part of town. But as the demographics changed, more minorities, more Hispanics, more African Americans. I guess they thought they had to get out of the business. And so one night, you know, they lit it up. And, the fire department comes in and they say, oh, there's some faulty wiring. So, the insurance company didn't buy it. So the insurance company does their own investigation, and, you know, they find some accelerant on the other side of the building. So you have faulty wiring and then you have accelerant. Make a long story short, they make a connection with the family that owns the business with some guy that came out of Newark that was organized crime and there was an arrest made. The guy from Newark, had to go to court. He was a mess. He was a real nasty guy cursing the judge. And the reason I have some of those details, I have a small article about the time he was in court. He was very upset at the judge because the judge was Italian and he was Italian. So I have that little excerpt, that little article that apparently my father must have saved in his notes. I look at that, and I'm saying, wait a minute. They try to get away with arson for profit or whatever to deter this, and they weren't able to, but they weren't able to because of the insurance company. The insurance company did not accept the fire department and the police department, whoever else's, explanation. And so you fast forward, 5, 6 years down the line, and you start to see the fires. And, you know, it's kinda like an epithet that says, Hey, there was nobody there to stand up to, to question the fire department like that particular fire. No pun intended, it's really fueling the gentrification. What you have is the real estate community, pushing because they see an opportunity on their end. So they go to an owner of a tenement building and whatnot and say, well, we'll give you, 300,000 for your building, but if you empty it, we'll give you 400,000 and you can deliver it vacant. And so, the options that the owner has is, telling people to leave. Some did offer them money to leave at a certain point and then, others, just kept saying no. I remember going into a building as a house commissioner once in a while, people would call. And I went to a building,I couldn't believe it. I thought the building was empty. It was in shambles. The landlord had taken a sledgehammer. It looked like the landlord or whoever, again, had taken a sledgehammer to the hallways. So I remember I had to step over these plaster boards to get to the door. And the fellow said, Yeah, somebody lives there. Knocked on the door. So sure enough, somebody opened up. I said, How can you live in this? He said, it wasn't like this, but, you know, we haven't been able to move and the landlord, in the middle of the night, you hear somebody with a hammer and this is what they've done. So, I mean, they did whatever they can to get a person out and then obviously the last, but not least was the fire. So, I mean, the real estate had their responsibility. The city had their responsibility to deal with fire codes, and they chose to neglect their responsibility. Again, I remember going in buildings, and I couldn't believe it. I mean, there was loose boards. I mean, one heavy person could have fallen through the floor. It was like that, and some of the doors were really not as secured as they're supposed to. The front doors, most of them, were broken. That's a violation.

Chris: What were some of the other jobs you had in Hoboken?

Edwin: I worked in the school system, but I was also a housing commissioner. At the age of 20, I came in as one of the youngest housing commissioners. And, so from 1970 to almost 1990, I was on the housing board. Again, that's a trustee position, nonpaid. But, in 1977, I became a coordinator in the school district for the bilingual program. And so that's where some of the kids that were killed were in the bilingual program, and we did have, like, fundraisers to help the families. But from the housing authority perspective, the housing authority kinda responded, not just because I intervened. And, whatever apartments that were available, they looked to accommodate the fire victims. Now there were some adjustments or approvals that were needed on the part of HUD because the apartments that were pretty much available were like 1 and at most 2 bedroom apartments. And a lot of the people that were displaced were families. So HUD had to give permission to Hoboken Housing Authority to allow them to come in, under the guise that it was temporary housing. Because you're not supposed to have, if you have a 1 bedroom, you're only supposed to have 2 people. If you have a 2 bedroom, you're only supposed to have, perhaps a couple and maybe 2 boys or 2 girls. But anything beyond that, would not be authorized. But, under the circumstances, the housing authority just tried to accommodate as many as we could, putting sometimes families in 1 and 2 bedroom apartments. The worst part was that it was rapid fire. From 1978, as we see it to 83, there were a lot of fires. People were killed, but there were a lot of people that were displaced, you know, and families that were displaced. The other thing was the affordable housing units. Units that were disappearing. Again, we tried to do what we could. But I recall one fire that, had moved up from the project. We moved up to 12th Street, and I recalled, getting called by the councilman passing by my house. I said, let's and I knew him because he sat on the housing authority as well as a commissioner. He says, you know, I need you to come with me to this fire 2 blocks away. And it was because a bunch of people were killed, and they were gonna bring the bodies out. And I was like, oh my god. It was on 11th and Willow, kinda right on the corner. And today, its a parking lot. I thought I read their looking into developing that now too. I think it's still a parking lot, however. And, you know, that's when they, you know, they were bringing people out. And, you know, I was there. And a lot of these fires, I mean, they were able to determine where it started. A lot of it was started in hallways, and they kinda ran up.

Edwin: Again, going to the issue of violation where the doors are open, where anybody can walk in and out, that's a city violation, a code violation. They were never enforced, especially for those buildings. What was disheartening a little is when I read, again, trying to blame the tenants or something about, there was a fire spotted by a tenant or a dispute by a tenant. Therefore, they all were painted, with the same brush, so to speak. Oh, well, those are the, you know, the tenants that do it themselves, which was not true. The one fire that was pretty, evident was the, was it the American Hotel? And, but the owner had been, that's definitely there was almost overwhelming where the owner was told, well, if you can empty it, we can get you more money. You know what? What comes to mind? Some of the feelings I had is helplessness. You know? I look back and I say, Jesus, what could have been done? I don't know. You know, I did a small part of what I was able to do, but, I really think that ultimately, I boiled it down, is that the prosecution part was a major part that has left a hole in the history.

Christopher López.

Dr. Edwin Duroy was born in Bayamon, Puerto Rico (1950). He was two years old when his family moved to Hoboken, New Jersey. He lived in Hoboken for fifty-two years, where he saw the transformation of the community and its gentrification including the arson fires of the 1970-1980s. He is a retired educator serving as a teacher, admin-istrator, and college professor. Dr. Duroy graduated from Jersey City State College, Montclair State College, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He resides with his wife Santa in South Amboy, New Jersey.