1 10 114 https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/86056/archive/files/327b7f1128134b81c4fdc536f26a1d9b.pdf?Expires=1774483200&Signature=g2D1g%7EsxSWYJiQbppzfPIpkQvTH8mlL75t6tXulpStzfY6dBjoaaAdPNckSs-cTZTWW06oUl9SPb9Bl5YrCSCtHHxLSvYZn59d7LamRst4A5YkVlj1mt6IukUL8gs%7ELzfVJeHfyAtzB7g5%7EdSOiL6bNsXIQhX7hGjZgqIK-Iqrh9mElsThJHeJmnmeaS8jUQi2Ywu-KRyJhl5B073zVy5OGN9u0B-YrvjKPgGZgRtxDA%7EmIfUlmvCulK5B8o96zoLEdo%7Etw-BjYSnfaxJgMGtdivaZ3TI39pBd1k8ALVRqLlC7awckGcszI8xg435cHHifr6q5WY%7EGK3tp6ZJOcRJQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 41739e9f1e08711301c4e10136b517cb PDF Text Text Name/s: Angeles Cotto (in green) and Gladys Cotto (in yellow/cousin) Place: Sumidero, Aguas Buenas, Puerto Rico Year: December 1969 Short Description: This picture was taken on December 26, 1969; near front of Iglesia del Perpetuo Socorro. They day after Angeles’s sister’s (Gloria) Christmas wedding. �Name/s: (from left to right): Angeles’s older brothers Artemio Cotto, Jose “Cheo” Cotto and her father Domingo Cotto Place: Sumidero, Aguas Buenas, Puerto Rico Year: circa 1959 Short Description: Here in a test of strength, Cheo asked who was the strongest between his father and brother. They locked hands and Cheo climbed on curious as to who could last the longest. They both let go, at the same time, after the photo was taken. Guess we’ll never know the answer to that question. Photo taken by Angeles in front of her childhood family home. �Name/s: Angeles Cotto Place: Sumidero, Aguas Buenas Year: March 12, 1977 Short Description: Here is Angeles a few hours before heading off to the church, Iglesia del Perpetuo Socorro, for her wedding. Photo was taken in the back balcony of her family home in Sumidero. She jokes, “in front of the pigpen for a proper send off.” She was 27 years old in this picture. �Name/s: Luis “Guito” Pagan (husband to Angeles) Place: Hoboken, New Jersey (2nd street between Jackson & Monroe) Year: early 1990s (1993?) Short Description: Taken front of Hoboken Low Riders. A bicycle repair shop, on 2nd street between the streets of Jackson & Monroe. If you weren’t sure they were open all you had to do was listen for the Salsa music emanating from the garage and you knew someone was there ready to help. �Name/s: (left to right) (Angeles’s mother) Ramona “Moncha” Hernandez and her grandsons Joel Cotto and Hipolito Cotto Jr. Place: Sumidero, Aguas Buenas Year: 1973 Short Description: The grandsons were helping give the pigs a bath. Located behind Ramona’s (Angeles’s childhood) home. �Name/s: AnnaMaria Cotto (in pink-Angeles’s sister); (Angeles’s nephews and niece) Hector Peralta (standing), Mikel Peralta, Andy Peralta (kneeling), Annamaria Peralta (far right), (behind the carriage to the right- Angeles’s son) Luis Pagan Jr. (in carriages left to right) Oscar Perez, Glory Pagan (Angeles’s Daughter) Place: Church Square Park; Hoboken, New Jersey Year: 1980 Short Description: Photo taken on a warm summer day at Church Square Park or what the kids grew calling it, 4th Street Park. The second the weather warmed up, sisters Angeles and AnnaMaria would take their kids to the park for a nice day out. �Name/s: Ramona “Moncha” Hernandez (center) Place: Sumidero, Aguas Buenas Year: 1979 Short Description: Moncha’s 63rd Birthday surrounded by her grandchildren. �(Caption for middle picture) Name/s: Glory (back), Mary (front) Place: Lake Welch; Stony Point, NY Year: 1990 Short Description: photo taken at lake welch. I don't remember much of that day but I will say my Supergirl swimsuit was everything to me. �(Caption for middle picture) Name/s: (left to right): Glory Pagan, friend of the family Grendaly Torres, Mary Pagan Place: apartment in 2nd and Madison; Hoboken, NJ Year: March 30, 1997; Easter Short Description: We always dressed up for easter. My mint dress (far right) was actually my “dama” dress from Glory’s Sweet Sixteen. My mother made the original dress and a year later she shortened it so I could wear again. I even wore it one time for Halloween. �(Caption for top picture) Name/s: (Top) Mary (Bottom) Glory and Angeles Place: Basement apartment at 335 Garden St., Hoboken NJ Year: August 1, 2000 Short Description: Glory found a place that printed photos onto cakes. So she HAD to get one with a photo of our mom. She was 24 year old in the black and white photo. Fun Fact: My dad still carries that photo of her, in his wallet, 47 years later. �(Caption for top picture) Name/s: Glory Pagan (far right- blue dress), Junior and Senior runner-up crowned princesses of local beauty pageant Place: St Peter and Paul Church Hall, Saint Peter and Paul Church 4th and Hudson, Hoboken NJ Year: 1994 Short Description: Glory with three contestants from Hoboken’s Puerto Rican Society Beauty Pageant. The two girls in the middle were Junior and Senior crowned Princesses of Hoboken. Glory entered wearing a blue dress Angeles designed and made for her specifically for the pageant. �Name: Glory Ann Pagan (second from the left) Place: St. Peter and Paul Church Hall; Saint Peter and Paul Church; Hoboken, NJ Year: 1995 Short description: Newspaper clipping of Angeles’s daughter, Glory, on the night she was crowned Princess of Hoboken. It was her second year participating in Hoboken’s Puerto Rican Society beauty pageant. �(Caption for top picture) Name: Mary Pagan Place: Sinatra Park; Sinatra Dr., Hoboken, NJ Year: 2000 Short Description: photo taken in Sinatra Park at the top steps of the amphitheater. One of the go to after school hangout spots for myself and my friends. �Name/s: Angeles, Ramona, Julia Cotto, Mary (baby) Place: Sumidero, Aguas Buenas, Puerto Rico Year: 1988 Short Description: Angeles with her mother and eldest sister. Photo taken at Julia’s house, during a trip visiting family in Puerto Rico. �Name/s: Angeles Cotto, Nancy (Angeles’s co-worker) Place: Garden Laundry; Hoboken, NJ Year: July 2001 Short Description: Angeles worked at a Laundromat at 300 Garden St. in Hoboken. Here she is with a co-worker/ friend who only worked with Angeles for a short while but they became fast friends. �(Caption for middle picture) Name: Angeles Place: Washington, New Jersey Year: 2003 Short Description: photo taken on a trip to Saint Joseph Roman Catholic Church in Washington, New Jersey. �Name: Angeles’s siblings (from Left to right) Gloria, Jose, Angeles, Ana, Polo Place: in our kitchen; 3rd and Jackson, Hoboken, NJ Year: August 1, 2016 Short description: The aunts and uncles, from P.R., came for a visit that summer. Angeles had no idea we were throwing her a surprise birthday party five days after this photo was taken. It was a lovely casino themed. She was really surprised! �(Caption for bottom picture) Name: Brandon Cuevas Place: Hoboken High School; Hoboken, NJ Year: 2016 Short Description: Photo is of Brandon’s Senior graduation photo Class of 2016. Brandon is Angeles’s grandson and Glory’s eldest son. �Name: Dimarie, Luis, Angeles, Kiomy, David Place: 3rd and Jackson, Hoboken, NJ Year: 2018 Short description: Angeles here with four of her six grandchildren. They surprised her with a cake for her 71st birthday. �Name: Angeles Place: 3rd and Jackson; her bedroom/ sewing room Year: October 2018 Short description: final touches to her youngest granddaughter, Kiomy’s Sweet 16 dress and cloak. �Name: Glory Pagan, Luis Pagan, Mary Pagan Place: Fort Jackson, South Carolina Year: February 2006 Short description: Taken at Luis’s graduation from boot camp. He had enlisted in the US Army a couple months prior and my sister and I hopped on a 13 hour train ride to South Carolina to watch him graduate. We were beyond proud of our big brother. He served for seven years; did two tours, one in Iraq and one in Afghanistan. In 2013, he was honorably discharged as Sergeant Luis Antonio Pagan. �Name: (left to right) Iris Blanco, Jose Blanco and Angeles Cotto Place: Our Lady of Grace Church, Hoboken NJ Year: May 13, 2019 Short description: Photo of Jose (the youngest of Angeles’s grandchildren) after his confirmation at OLG Church. He’s pictured with both of his grandmothers, Iris and Angeles. �Name: front row: (L to R) Angeles, Kiomy, Brandon, Mary middle row:(L to R) Luis, Glory, David Back row: (L to R) Daniel Padilla, Luis Antonio Place: living room; 3rd and Jackson, Hoboken NJ Year: December 24/25 2019 Short description: We always wanted to have some kind of uniform for Christmas; at least once, be it onesies or matching pajamas or shirts, and take a holiday photo. That year my brother surprised everyone ugly Christmas sweaters. Truthfully they were super cute. We all loved them. �Name: Kiomy Cuevas (grandaughter); Angeles Cotto Place: in our kitchen; 3rd and Jackson, Hoboken NJ Year: June 2024 Short description: Here they are cutting out the pattern for a dress Kiomy designed for a Pride prom. It’s become an unofficial tradition between granddaughter and grandmother. Kiomy’s dream is to be a fashion designer, so she usually dreams up a dress, sketches it out and hands it over to “Mami” as she lovingly calls her and together they get to work on making her dress. �Name: Las Damas de Maria and Father Philip Place: Our Lady of Grace Church hall, Hoboken NJ Year: November 2023 Short description: Pictured here Angeles (back left) with the women led church group of Our Lady of Grace Church, Las Damas de Maria (The Ladies of Mary) during a celebration luncheon. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Oral Histories by Christopher Lopez Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Pagan Family, Photos. Subject The topic of the resource Interviews Puerto Ricans--New Jersey Oral history Description An account of the resource A collection of photographs from the Pagan family. Each photo includes additional descriptive information per image, including name(s) of those in the image, location of image, year the photograph was taken, and a short description based on personal details of the photograph's subject(s). Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Christopher López. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource Photo collection created in 2023. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Courtesy of the Pagan family. and 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. Note that the written permission of the copyright owners and/or other rights holders (such as publicity and/or privacy rights) is required for distribution, reproduction, or other use of protected items beyond that allowed by fair use or other statutory exemptions. Responsibility for making an independent legal assessment of an item and securing any necessary permissions ultimately rests with persons desiring to use the item. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Language A language of the resource English Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Photographs span 1959-2024 Type The nature or genre of the resource Still Image Hoboken oral history Pagan family Puerto Rican Puerto Rico https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/86056/archive/files/d2e9d9adce118fde4a813defd92b690e.pdf?Expires=1774483200&Signature=j%7E7SA3wNjrd8K9Tb3-uHChK2jQ4ws-i605zXVbF6tPkfRQUz2g9gtoKyy2JB5yEWYk0wNX7tbWUMpqeHimryvAQgrRXh1SvUKQt34XQ35tIlMbbsObU-9xLf4Lbw%7E5A7bO-YP3bXMAPBuC0859XiHFISAwhKAddufVC7n6r7mFvR4v7AnWFf2EfbWPe4zuMcgDR26MVA5NyVU8rTJYsLdTpuHlCXc3MZPaD8IkAbbpBU7ncxwZeZAmAjUw7AIcbl9tXz7UKgp3SYPhfIjbvHi9NnNB181FMR40oyzBNC-91IzjNkCd00f18v2WNNqJuRSZrKSX3vgnmK7xiCtjYOKw__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 1468aa1686a9bd36e453d6e4ddc7045b PDF Text Text Janet Ayala These conversations were recorded on Thursday, May 5th, and Friday, May 27th, 2022. SUMMARY KEYWORDS Pinter Hotel, fire, displacement, governmental neglect, abandonment, grief, closure, drug addiction as coping mechanisms, gentrification, trauma, ptsd, depression, anxiety, panic attacks, resilience, perseverance, loneliness, solidarity, hope. Janet: That was not their first fire. It was my second fire and their third fire in Hoboken. I wasn't at the one in Madison Street, the one that happened during the day. It happened right before Easter. But until I saw for myself these news clippings and stuff, that's when I knew. I never knew about the gentrification until eight years ago. Chris: Tell me what you remember about the fire at the Pinter Hotel. Janet: It was around three in the morning, and I was sleeping, my baby was sleeping, and all of a sudden, I sat up on my bed and looked out the window and looked at the clock, and then I looked to the door, and the fire was coming in through the door, and my daughter's crib was right next to it. So I got up, I screamed to my husband, there's fire. We were the last ones out, and when I went to pass the door, I couldn't get to the fire escape because my whole door was already consumed in fire. My husband at the time, he;s deceased now, he turned to control the one that was coming in through the door so he could get me and the baby across. I got to the fire escape, climbed out the window as soon as I climb out the door for the fire escape that the rest of the people had to use just swung open with the force of the flame. As I'm going down the stairs, I hear a woman in Spanish screaming, help me I'm burning in Spanish. At that moment, I thought it was my mother. I ran back up while my husband's trying to get into their apartment. I ran down when I went to run back up, somebody pulled me and took the baby out of my arms. They pulled me by my hair. They took the baby and then they forced me down. And as soon as I finished the last step on that fire escape, my brother's little friend, girlfriend, lands at my feet. All crooked, all arms and limbs all over the place because they lived on the fourth floor. After that, I see my husband jumped out the window because my apartment exploded. At this time, there's no firemen. There was no firemen. And we go towards the window of my mom's apartment, and all you can see is black smoke. We couldn't get to them. There was nothing. I believe that when my mom died, she woke me up. I truly believe that, or else, we weren't going to make it out either. Janet: After I see the little girl land on my feet and see my husband jump out and he meet me downstairs. As I'm looking up from that same apartment, I see the lady that was related to the girl that had just jumped, and she was in the window with two kids. She threw one and they broke the fall. When she went to jump with the baby in her arms, the baby got scared and pushed away and landed on the flame. He was burned instantly when she fell, she didn't fall the right way, and she died. Then I hear that somebody in the front is screaming, and there is a little dress slip, and that's how my mom used to sleep in a slip and undies. So I run to the front of the �building, and I see this lady screaming with a fire right behind her, and she's going to jump because she has no other option, and her leg gets caught on the window. At this point, I still don't see no firemen, and there was a fire really close to us. And after that, that's when I finally saw firemen, and I ran before the lady, I ran and told them, we'll go up. You don't have to go up. We'll go up through the window. And they said, no, the buildings collapsing. So I go back and I find that about this lady out the window, and she, over here, gets caught on that window. When the fireman decides to bring up that stairs, she comes undone, and she ends up on the floor after becoming a human torch. Then she became, I don't know what she became when she fell. She blew open. And at this point, I'm still thinking, maybe there's some sort of hope we were holding on just to shear hope, and the firemen put it out. I know it was gasoline from the bottom all the way to the top, but the firemen couldn't get in there until they think the building was you know, that they could go in. And I stood outside until I saw the four bodies taken out and one body bag Chris: What happened after the fire? Janet: After the fire, I ended up, I got a small studio in Journal Square. I didn't know I was pregnant for seven months because I was only 80 something pounds. I couldn't eat, I couldn't sleep. I would get up screaming every night that the building was on fire, and until they checked the whole thing, I could n't relax. And then it turns out I had the urge to eat something, and I went and ate it. I got food poisoning, and ended up in the hospital and found out I was pregnant for seven months. I had no stomach. I had nothing. I was 80 something pounds with the baby that was seven months inside me and the doctors told me we definitely had to do a medical abortion. There's no way this child is going to have any sort of life. And I looked at him and said its seven months, and he said, yes. And is it alive? Yes, then I'm not doing an abortion. I'll take my chances. And I did, and she's 38 now. She’s 38 and has three of our own kids. Janet: And then I ended up we moved around a lot, because not only did we lose everything in the fire, he lost his job. A couple of weeks after he lost his job, and that’s when things really started going downhill. I was diagnosed, I am diagnosed with PTSD, major depression with recurrence, anxiety and panic attacks. I do control them very well. I am on medication. After that fire, my aunt, my dad, they forgot that we existed. We were left alone, not only by Hoboken, but also because of the family people. The people that survived, I was only 17. I never got any help. I never, but nobody ever told me that that was what happened, because after that, I lost my husband. He couldn't deal and he became a drug addict. Then I lost my sister to the same thing because they couldn't deal with what had happened. We lost our mom, we lost my brother, we lost our nephew, which was my sister's son. Even the dog was burned and my stepdad. I was the last one out of that Pinter's hotel fire. My husband and I were the last ones out. And things had to be done. We had to collect money. We didn't have any money to bury them, and there was four. So we went, we had to throw ourselves in the street to get money to bury them, and we didn't live in Hoboken anymore. We lived towards Jersey City and and towards that way, and we never found out anything. They never told us anything. That's the other thing. I've been looking for their graves for years. I couldn't find her grave because it was so traumatic at the time that everything happened that I remember it was in Bayamon, and we went to one and they �couldn't find it. She wasn't there. And we went looking for it. We couldn't find it. It's not marked. There's an open space that's where she's buried. But there's nothing there. There's no marker. We know it's there because it’s 84 and ahead of it is 87 and 86 it's the next one. So we know it's that one. But is there anything there? No. It's right next to the road that they used to come in and out of the cemetery. But I have been looking, I have always wanted for somebody to talk about this. My sister died without no closure. I just lost her a year and a half ago, but she went nuts when she lost her son and her mom. Janet: I want you to know what in my head would be, what would honor my family, my sister that died, what that'll be two years that my sister passed away, and she was waiting for this memorial when the first one was canceled. She was still with us, so she never got that closure. She knew some of the story, but not all of it. She was lost. She got lost immediately after the fire. It didn't take very long for her to lose her way, and when she was finally getting help, and you know, being okay, she got very ill, and was been ill for quite a while, but she would always mention that she wanted to be there. That she needed that. She needed that closure. Janet: Now I'm on a mission. I need to do something to my mom's grave. And I still got to find the other two. I want to do something. And like I said, we're a working family. We don't have nothing extra on the side for me to say, I'm going to go and do this, spend money and spend my time and get this done before I cannot get it done. Because after I'm gone, there's nobody else to write this story. There is nobody that's going to be able to really say what happened before, during, and after these fires. And I know I'm not the only one out there. I know I cannot be the only one out there that can remember so much, because I would love to speak to them. This has been a lonely process, a very lonely process. For many years. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Oral Histories by Christopher Lopez Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Christopher López Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Janet Ayala-Vazquez. Janet Ayala-Vazquez was born in Passaic, New Jersey in 1964 to parents, Francisca Vazquez-Prado and Ismael Vazquez-Santiago who migrated to the United States from Puerto Rico in the early 1960’s. She is one of three children born of the same parents who like many Puerto Ricans migrated with the promise of better economic opportunities. Janet had a tumultuous upbringing having moved a lot and the untimely abandonment of her paternal father at an early age. Her mother eventually remarried and the family moved from Florida to Hoboken where her stepfather, Juan Serrano, had some family already living in the city. Janet and her family, like many Puerto Ricans during the late seventies and early eighties, experienced firsthand the fire epidemic that plagued Hoboken in the time of its gentrification. Within just a two year span her family had been involved in three separate arson fires. On April 30th, 1982, Janet lost her mother, stepfather, brother Ismael Vazquez, and nephew, Charlie Serrano in a devastating arson fire at the Pinter Hotel which took the lives of thirteen people in total. The aftermath of the fire has marred Janet’s life with immeasurable grief and loss. After the fire, Janet was left homeless without any aid from the city. At seventeen years of age, with an infant daughter she was left to fend for herself and the ensuing trauma of witnessing such violence. To this day, Janet deals with major depression, PTSD, and anxiety as a result of the fire. At the time, just after the fire, her experience was so traumatic that she discovered by chance that she had been seven months pregnant which went undetected due to serious weight loss from stress. Her daughter, Vanessa Serrano was born safely and now has three children of her own. Over forty years removed from the fire Janet continues to put the pieces of that fateful day together. In 2023 she had finally found the final resting places of her family who perished. To her dismay, she discovered that her mother and stepfather were buried together in a cemetery in Bayamon, Puerto Rico in an unmarked grave. This, another painful reminder of her family’s erasure. Tombstones for her family members have yet to be made due to strenuous financial circumstances her family is facing. Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Janet: That was not their first fire. It was my second fire and their third fire in Hoboken. I wasn't at the one in Madison Street, the one that happened during the day. It happened right before Easter. But until I saw for myself these news clippings and stuff, that's when I knew. I never knew about the gentrification until eight years ago. Chris: Tell me what you remember about the fire at the Pinter Hotel. Janet: It was around three in the morning, and I was sleeping, my baby was sleeping, and all of a sudden, I sat up on my bed and looked out the window and looked at the clock, and then I looked to the door, and the fire was coming in through the door, and my daughter's crib was right next to it. So I got up, I screamed to my husband, there's fire. We were the last ones out, and when I went to pass the door, I couldn't get to the fire escape because my whole door was already consumed in fire. My husband at the time, he;s deceased now, he turned to control the one that was coming in through the door so he could get me and the baby across. I got to the fire escape, climbed out the window as soon as I climb out the door for the fire escape that the rest of the people had to use just swung open with the force of the flame. As I'm going down the stairs, I hear a woman in Spanish screaming, help me I'm burning in Spanish. At that moment, I thought it was my mother. I ran back up while my husband's trying to get into their apartment. I ran down when I went to run back up, somebody pulled me and took the baby out of my arms. They pulled me by my hair. They took the baby and then they forced me down. And as soon as I finished the last step on that fire escape, my brother's little friend, girlfriend, lands at my feet. All crooked, all arms and limbs all over the place because they lived on the fourth floor. After that, I see my husband jumped out the window because my apartment exploded. At this time, there's no firemen. There was no firemen. And we go towards the window of my mom's apartment, and all you can see is black smoke. We couldn't get to them. There was nothing. I believe that when my mom died, she woke me up. I truly believe that, or else, we weren't going to make it out either. Janet: After I see the little girl land on my feet and see my husband jump out and he meet me downstairs. As I'm looking up from that same apartment, I see the lady that was related to the girl that had just jumped, and she was in the window with two kids. She threw one and they broke the fall. When she went to jump with the baby in her arms, the baby got scared and pushed away and landed on the flame. He was burned instantly when she fell, she didn't fall the right way, and she died. Then I hear that somebody in the front is screaming, and there is a little dress slip, and that's how my mom used to sleep in a slip and undies. So I run to the front of the building, and I see this lady screaming with a fire right behind her, and she's going to jump because she has no other option, and her leg gets caught on the window. At this point, I still don't see no firemen, and there was a fire really close to us. And after that, that's when I finally saw firemen, and I ran before the lady, I ran and told them, we'll go up. You don't have to go up. We'll go up through the window. And they said, no, the buildings collapsing. So I go back and I find that about this lady out the window, and she, over here, gets caught on that window. When the fireman decides to bring up that stairs, she comes undone, and she ends up on the floor after becoming a human torch. Then she became, I don't know what she became when she fell. She blew open. And at this point, I'm still thinking, maybe there's some sort of hope we were holding on just to shear hope, and the firemen put it out. I know it was gasoline from the bottom all the way to the top, but the firemen couldn't get in there until they think the building was you know, that they could go in. And I stood outside until I saw the four bodies taken out and one body bag Chris: What happened after the fire? Janet: After the fire, I ended up, I got a small studio in Journal Square. I didn't know I was pregnant for seven months because I was only 80 something pounds. I couldn't eat, I couldn't sleep. I would get up screaming every night that the building was on fire, and until they checked the whole thing, I could n't relax. And then it turns out I had the urge to eat something, and I went and ate it. I got food poisoning, and ended up in the hospital and found out I was pregnant for seven months. I had no stomach. I had nothing. I was 80 something pounds with the baby that was seven months inside me and the doctors told me we definitely had to do a medical abortion. There's no way this child is going to have any sort of life. And I looked at him and said its seven months, and he said, yes. And is it alive? Yes, then I'm not doing an abortion. I'll take my chances. And I did, and she's 38 now. She’s 38 and has three of our own kids. Janet: And then I ended up we moved around a lot, because not only did we lose everything in the fire, he lost his job. A couple of weeks after he lost his job, and that’s when things really started going downhill. I was diagnosed, I am diagnosed with PTSD, major depression with recurrence, anxiety and panic attacks. I do control them very well. I am on medication. After that fire, my aunt, my dad, they forgot that we existed. We were left alone, not only by Hoboken, but also because of the family people. The people that survived, I was only 17. I never got any help. I never, but nobody ever told me that that was what happened, because after that, I lost my husband. He couldn't deal and he became a drug addict. Then I lost my sister to the same thing because they couldn't deal with what had happened. We lost our mom, we lost my brother, we lost our nephew, which was my sister's son. Even the dog was burned and my stepdad. I was the last one out of that Pinter's hotel fire. My husband and I were the last ones out. And things had to be done. We had to collect money. We didn't have any money to bury them, and there was four. So we went, we had to throw ourselves in the street to get money to bury them, and we didn't live in Hoboken anymore. We lived towards Jersey City and and towards that way, and we never found out anything. They never told us anything. That's the other thing. I've been looking for their graves for years. I couldn't find her grave because it was so traumatic at the time that everything happened that I remember it was in Bayamon, and we went to one and they couldn't find it. She wasn't there. And we went looking for it. We couldn't find it. It's not marked. There's an open space that's where she's buried. But there's nothing there. There's no marker. We know it's there because it’s 84 and ahead of it is 87 and 86 it's the next one. So we know it's that one. But is there anything there? No. It's right next to the road that they used to come in and out of the cemetery. But I have been looking, I have always wanted for somebody to talk about this. My sister died without no closure. I just lost her a year and a half ago, but she went nuts when she lost her son and her mom. Janet: I want you to know what in my head would be, what would honor my family, my sister that died, what that'll be two years that my sister passed away, and she was waiting for this memorial when the first one was canceled. She was still with us, so she never got that closure. She knew some of the story, but not all of it. She was lost. She got lost immediately after the fire. It didn't take very long for her to lose her way, and when she was finally getting help, and you know, being okay, she got very ill, and was been ill for quite a while, but she would always mention that she wanted to be there. That she needed that. She needed that closure. Janet: Now I'm on a mission. I need to do something to my mom's grave. And I still got to find the other two. I want to do something. And like I said, we're a working family. We don't have nothing extra on the side for me to say, I'm going to go and do this, spend money and spend my time and get this done before I cannot get it done. Because after I'm gone, there's nobody else to write this story. There is nobody that's going to be able to really say what happened before, during, and after these fires. And I know I'm not the only one out there. I know I cannot be the only one out there that can remember so much, because I would love to speak to them. This has been a lonely process, a very lonely process. For many years. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Janet Ayala-Vazquez, Oral history interview transcription. Subject The topic of the resource Interviews Puerto Ricans--New Jersey Oral history Description An account of the resource A transcription of the oral history interview conducted with Janet Ayala-Vazquez. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Christopher López. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource Interview conducted on Thursday, May 5, and Friday, May 27, 2022. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource 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. Note that the written permission of the copyright owners and/or other rights holders (such as publicity and/or privacy rights) is required for distribution, reproduction, or other use of protected items beyond that allowed by fair use or other statutory exemptions. Responsibility for making an independent legal assessment of an item and securing any necessary permissions ultimately rests with persons desiring to use the item. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1980s Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Oral history (transcription) displacement fire Hoboken Hoboken fires Janet Ayala-Vazquez oral history Pinter Hotel Puerto Rican Puerto Rico https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/86056/archive/files/c2d88931357117f87bd9e8c7aa7f2bd9.mp3?Expires=1774483200&Signature=KRk-hSF2DDLZi31epjHs0n7MXFPUZ0D4Xlpu0hq1KWY2w9y6HiLS1b48DkHkhvCjfHkQdNMhDB4q4STE-PQIxk8Q1vPumz3Tb0nxiUk0AbejMKhFqVqliKZIG%7ESbm6ZmvrE48afCNgAWuSg59WtISzB3Bd06-hxr8Kvq%7E0JT1oixs4dhYGSaWQ9wUfCQbINCuGuoxEFdx%7Eo9p7zpiIcK7FWjOK04BJyAEWBJszeLsKEGDxt%7EbeDYbWoMzgNYBsEjl0UeB5HZK18EVKUV8DaJLu7YGFkjvB5gkj9p4hUheZEwop0qbL6lCZu5UwtZ6W0PGDNWzarleAwVnIPlk9dy8w__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM ae6aca2eaa0c286ae5c73acf7720f9ab Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Oral Histories by Christopher Lopez Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Digital audio file Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:13:55 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Christopher López Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Janet Ayala-Vazquez. Janet Ayala-Vazquez was born in Passaic, New Jersey in 1964 to parents, Francisca Vazquez-Prado and Ismael Vazquez-Santiago who migrated to the United States from Puerto Rico in the early 1960’s. She is one of three children born of the same parents who like many Puerto Ricans migrated with the promise of better economic opportunities. Janet had a tumultuous upbringing having moved a lot and the untimely abandonment of her paternal father at an early age. Her mother eventually remarried and the family moved from Florida to Hoboken where her stepfather, Juan Serrano, had some family already living in the city. Janet and her family, like many Puerto Ricans during the late seventies and early eighties, experienced firsthand the fire epidemic that plagued Hoboken in the time of its gentrification. Within just a two year span her family had been involved in three separate arson fires. On April 30th, 1982, Janet lost her mother, stepfather, brother Ismael Vazquez, and nephew, Charlie Serrano in a devastating arson fire at the Pinter Hotel which took the lives of thirteen people in total. The aftermath of the fire has marred Janet’s life with immeasurable grief and loss. After the fire, Janet was left homeless without any aid from the city. At seventeen years of age, with an infant daughter she was left to fend for herself and the ensuing trauma of witnessing such violence. To this day, Janet deals with major depression, PTSD, and anxiety as a result of the fire. At the time, just after the fire, her experience was so traumatic that she discovered by chance that she had been seven months pregnant which went undetected due to serious weight loss from stress. Her daughter, Vanessa Serrano was born safely and now has three children of her own. Over forty years removed from the fire Janet continues to put the pieces of that fateful day together. In 2023 she had finally found the final resting places of her family who perished. To her dismay, she discovered that her mother and stepfather were buried together in a cemetery in Bayamon, Puerto Rico in an unmarked grave. This, another painful reminder of her family’s erasure. Tombstones for her family members have yet to be made due to strenuous financial circumstances her family is facing. Bit Rate/Frequency Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio) 192 kbit/s Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Janet: That was not their first fire. It was my second fire and their third fire in Hoboken. I wasn't at the one in Madison Street, the one that happened during the day. It happened right before Easter. But until I saw for myself these news clippings and stuff, that's when I knew. I never knew about the gentrification until eight years ago. Chris: Tell me what you remember about the fire at the Pinter Hotel. Janet: It was around three in the morning, and I was sleeping, my baby was sleeping, and all of a sudden, I sat up on my bed and looked out the window and looked at the clock, and then I looked to the door, and the fire was coming in through the door, and my daughter's crib was right next to it. So I got up, I screamed to my husband, there's fire. We were the last ones out, and when I went to pass the door, I couldn't get to the fire escape because my whole door was already consumed in fire. My husband at the time, he;s deceased now, he turned to control the one that was coming in through the door so he could get me and the baby across. I got to the fire escape, climbed out the window as soon as I climb out the door for the fire escape that the rest of the people had to use just swung open with the force of the flame. As I'm going down the stairs, I hear a woman in Spanish screaming, help me I'm burning in Spanish. At that moment, I thought it was my mother. I ran back up while my husband's trying to get into their apartment. I ran down when I went to run back up, somebody pulled me and took the baby out of my arms. They pulled me by my hair. They took the baby and then they forced me down. And as soon as I finished the last step on that fire escape, my brother's little friend, girlfriend, lands at my feet. All crooked, all arms and limbs all over the place because they lived on the fourth floor. After that, I see my husband jumped out the window because my apartment exploded. At this time, there's no firemen. There was no firemen. And we go towards the window of my mom's apartment, and all you can see is black smoke. We couldn't get to them. There was nothing. I believe that when my mom died, she woke me up. I truly believe that, or else, we weren't going to make it out either. Janet: After I see the little girl land on my feet and see my husband jump out and he meet me downstairs. As I'm looking up from that same apartment, I see the lady that was related to the girl that had just jumped, and she was in the window with two kids. She threw one and they broke the fall. When she went to jump with the baby in her arms, the baby got scared and pushed away and landed on the flame. He was burned instantly when she fell, she didn't fall the right way, and she died. Then I hear that somebody in the front is screaming, and there is a little dress slip, and that's how my mom used to sleep in a slip and undies. So I run to the front of the building, and I see this lady screaming with a fire right behind her, and she's going to jump because she has no other option, and her leg gets caught on the window. At this point, I still don't see no firemen, and there was a fire really close to us. And after that, that's when I finally saw firemen, and I ran before the lady, I ran and told them, we'll go up. You don't have to go up. We'll go up through the window. And they said, no, the buildings collapsing. So I go back and I find that about this lady out the window, and she, over here, gets caught on that window. When the fireman decides to bring up that stairs, she comes undone, and she ends up on the floor after becoming a human torch. Then she became, I don't know what she became when she fell. She blew open. And at this point, I'm still thinking, maybe there's some sort of hope we were holding on just to shear hope, and the firemen put it out. I know it was gasoline from the bottom all the way to the top, but the firemen couldn't get in there until they think the building was you know, that they could go in. And I stood outside until I saw the four bodies taken out and one body bag Chris: What happened after the fire? Janet: After the fire, I ended up, I got a small studio in Journal Square. I didn't know I was pregnant for seven months because I was only 80 something pounds. I couldn't eat, I couldn't sleep. I would get up screaming every night that the building was on fire, and until they checked the whole thing, I could n't relax. And then it turns out I had the urge to eat something, and I went and ate it. I got food poisoning, and ended up in the hospital and found out I was pregnant for seven months. I had no stomach. I had nothing. I was 80 something pounds with the baby that was seven months inside me and the doctors told me we definitely had to do a medical abortion. There's no way this child is going to have any sort of life. And I looked at him and said its seven months, and he said, yes. And is it alive? Yes, then I'm not doing an abortion. I'll take my chances. And I did, and she's 38 now. She’s 38 and has three of our own kids. Janet: And then I ended up we moved around a lot, because not only did we lose everything in the fire, he lost his job. A couple of weeks after he lost his job, and that’s when things really started going downhill. I was diagnosed, I am diagnosed with PTSD, major depression with recurrence, anxiety and panic attacks. I do control them very well. I am on medication. After that fire, my aunt, my dad, they forgot that we existed. We were left alone, not only by Hoboken, but also because of the family people. The people that survived, I was only 17. I never got any help. I never, but nobody ever told me that that was what happened, because after that, I lost my husband. He couldn't deal and he became a drug addict. Then I lost my sister to the same thing because they couldn't deal with what had happened. We lost our mom, we lost my brother, we lost our nephew, which was my sister's son. Even the dog was burned and my stepdad. I was the last one out of that Pinter's hotel fire. My husband and I were the last ones out. And things had to be done. We had to collect money. We didn't have any money to bury them, and there was four. So we went, we had to throw ourselves in the street to get money to bury them, and we didn't live in Hoboken anymore. We lived towards Jersey City and and towards that way, and we never found out anything. They never told us anything. That's the other thing. I've been looking for their graves for years. I couldn't find her grave because it was so traumatic at the time that everything happened that I remember it was in Bayamon, and we went to one and they couldn't find it. She wasn't there. And we went looking for it. We couldn't find it. It's not marked. There's an open space that's where she's buried. But there's nothing there. There's no marker. We know it's there because it’s 84 and ahead of it is 87 and 86 it's the next one. So we know it's that one. But is there anything there? No. It's right next to the road that they used to come in and out of the cemetery. But I have been looking, I have always wanted for somebody to talk about this. My sister died without no closure. I just lost her a year and a half ago, but she went nuts when she lost her son and her mom. Janet: I want you to know what in my head would be, what would honor my family, my sister that died, what that'll be two years that my sister passed away, and she was waiting for this memorial when the first one was canceled. She was still with us, so she never got that closure. She knew some of the story, but not all of it. She was lost. She got lost immediately after the fire. It didn't take very long for her to lose her way, and when she was finally getting help, and you know, being okay, she got very ill, and was been ill for quite a while, but she would always mention that she wanted to be there. That she needed that. She needed that closure. Janet: Now I'm on a mission. I need to do something to my mom's grave. And I still got to find the other two. I want to do something. And like I said, we're a working family. We don't have nothing extra on the side for me to say, I'm going to go and do this, spend money and spend my time and get this done before I cannot get it done. Because after I'm gone, there's nobody else to write this story. There is nobody that's going to be able to really say what happened before, during, and after these fires. And I know I'm not the only one out there. I know I cannot be the only one out there that can remember so much, because I would love to speak to them. This has been a lonely process, a very lonely process. For many years. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Janet Ayala-Vazquez, Oral history interview audio recording. Subject The topic of the resource Interviews Puerto Ricans--New Jersey Oral history Description An account of the resource The digital audio recording of the oral history interview conducted with Janet Ayala-Vazquez. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Christopher López. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource Interview conducted on Thursday, May 5, and Friday, May 27, 2022. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource 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. Note that the written permission of the copyright owners and/or other rights holders (such as publicity and/or privacy rights) is required for distribution, reproduction, or other use of protected items beyond that allowed by fair use or other statutory exemptions. Responsibility for making an independent legal assessment of an item and securing any necessary permissions ultimately rests with persons desiring to use the item. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource MP3 Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Oral history (digital audio file) Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1980s displacement fire Hoboken Hoboken fires Janet Ayala-Vazquez oral history Pinter Hotel Puerto Rican Puerto Rico https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/86056/archive/files/91ac7e025ee86098f41ea5a055557564.pdf?Expires=1774483200&Signature=tI%7E5M3OsixZiKhvNbIQ3PeDU8rSPVUv68L0qINCkb5sKH7jQsoXS-LgUlWVnJghW6kX9PuJ1ZYo8k1%7ESo6Sx0t99D2kbm3mmXLUkoQVNdXMnVf4NKFcn1QhU31RYCyoUW6VSkr8tF6WqaIZVFMa3GAXmGTjU1rQe%7EoPBPkSxYtWyQLxLCHFvjgdvJjhViphtvyeo95OYHpY3Yj7jitEapMV9rRo3cdWtKCDjJ6zCHWBLnj%7EM9RlsvjAcBk8nZydZfMFio6ZAWulvxn-C7x7hfHqdb4RFABaoASM-oSHen85MSm4MDIc6ZQCY1jVhnnd1XrlI1xffxgtec90ZjrlCyg__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 1fbd7910f297d4071a4f29b5b0cd5745 PDF Text Text Janet Ayala near her home in Deltona, Florida in 2022 holding one of the only images of her mother, Francisca Vazquez that remains. �Family photographs of the Vazquez-Serrano family on a mantle in Janet’s home. �A superimposed photograph of Janet’ brother, Ismael Vazquez, who died in the Pinter Hotel fire in 1982, with his great grandmother. �Janet, her brother Edwin, and sister, Noemi, with their mother Francisca in Florida right before migrating to Hoboken. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Oral Histories by Christopher Lopez Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Janet Ayala-Vazquez, Photos. Subject The topic of the resource Interviews Puerto Ricans--New Jersey Oral history Description An account of the resource A collection of photographs from Janet Ayala-Vazquez. Each photo includes a short description based on personal details of the photo's subject(s). Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Christopher López. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource Photo collection created in 2022. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Courtesy of Janet Ayala-Vazquez and 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. Note that the written permission of the copyright owners and/or other rights holders (such as publicity and/or privacy rights) is required for distribution, reproduction, or other use of protected items beyond that allowed by fair use or other statutory exemptions. Responsibility for making an independent legal assessment of an item and securing any necessary permissions ultimately rests with persons desiring to use the item. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Still Image Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Photographs created in 2022; scans of archival photos created in 2022 displacement fire Hoboken Hoboken fires Janet Ayala-Vazquez oral history Pinter Hotel Puerto Rican Puerto Rico https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/86056/archive/files/7499f955957b79dccab1da4a9b3bde52.pdf?Expires=1774483200&Signature=rLcX09iMPYyPjsoFNqOgrRd4EkZaMtv8CXtrsbHhsBFibw%7ENtGW8vn6%7EIXbUIEjpz8aJ77PMC9LYtKbVu7UpypNjxqlo-Jy-mRSUhrv7Y1Iz4ATIIPa6MRGPExb%7ELGvxnhFhKhSwcJiKfD68L9PQ5yLYvnFxGm71RdSucNvf58iGPVmT-ijI0zzOr-l0CIdQCDfgLmHHM%7EM7eRk7Tt1%7E0bCBNOs-OZD1Y6mQqL0So9EUg3DE0N75ri6EWz%7EbPVaJMMzyy%7EibO1utD7ZodlvudpqsG6W3aNDbDT0iG%7E62nq1p2WPuN8tvNxbK2%7EtYsQfE0iySMQqAef7hx2Ff0Cx4LA__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM a7c2612292e2cfaf57873a490983d4c5 PDF Text Text TRXN_FrankGuzman_P1_240627_1203 Frank Guzman Experts from the oral history of Frank Guzman. This interview was conducted on June, 27, 2024 Topics Discussed: ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● The gentrification of the city Racism in Hoboken Puerto Rican community in Hoboken Mayoral Elections The denial of employment due to nepotism Growing up in Hoboken Parents migration from Puerto Rico Gentrification Displacement Harassment from Real Estate agent The Riots in Hoboken Racial tensions Displacement Fighting Fires in Hoboken Discrimination Tom Vezzetti The first Latino fireman in Hoboken Feliz Santiago Old fire captains Living in Public Housing The traumatic effects of violence due ti racial tensions Fighting fires in Hoboken Frank: I think my father mentioned one time that he needed to get on with his life. He needed to make money and in Puerto Rico you couldn't make money. My father came here in 1950. I believe it was 55 maybe or 56 they moved to Hammonton. My sister was born in Hammonton. I was born in Somers Point. But we were living in Atlantic City at the time, but Atlantic City didn't have a maternity hospital. So they shipped my mother out to Somers Point, New Jersey which was the neighboring town. My mom gave birth to me there in Somers Point and then six months later, my father came to Hoboken. Chris: Why did he come to Hoboken? Frank: I want to say he was looking for a better place to stay. We had maybe a little family here. My father, well, he had relatives in Atlantic City, my mother's sister lived there. We had family in Brooklyn, down in Flatbush, and Ditmars was my father's two sisters. And when we came to �Hoboken, one of the first places that I remember living on it was on second and River Street where it's all brand new now. Chris: How old were you when you came? Frank: I was six months old. My father grabbed me and my sister and we moved here. I went to all the school systems in the city of Hoboken. I went to David Rue School, which was on third and Park Avenue. From David Rue school, I went to number eight school, which was Sadie F. Leinkauf. When I was, we were moving again, and then I went to number 8 school. From seventh grade to ninth grade I went to Joseph F. Brandt school on ninth and park. And then I went to Hoboken High School from 73 to 76 on eighth and Clinton where I grew up on 715 Clinton Street for many years before we got gentrificated out to the projects. My mother was affected by that. A real estate agent came to my mom's house without, we weren't home, my mom was alone. My father was working, we were at school. And he said to my mother, you know, you gotta move. My mother started crying she says what are you talking about? He says, you got to move we’re selling the building. Just move and I came home from school and saw my mother crying. This guy said, We got to move. So I ran downstairs, I saw the guy come out of the house and I said, what are you doing messing with my mom? He goes, shut up kid, you got to move that's the bottom line. Of course, I got a little verbally abusive, but I was only like 13, 14 years old. And he was an adult already. I still see him around. I want to, every time I see him I want to punch him in the head. But, you know, they threw us down, well, they didn't throw us down to the projects. My mother had a compadre, my sister's godmother who sponsored a confirmation and she said listen, I got no place to stay. I gotta move from Clinton street, can you take care of my boys? And will give me whatever you need. She goes, I'll take care of the boys but I ain't taking the girls because I got five boys on my own. There was eight guys in one apartment, in the projects. We grew up together for a couple, I want to say about a year, close to a year. So, you know, we made it, you know, and then we got to an apartment in the projects. We lived at 310 with them and 311 was connected so we got 311 on the seventh floor. Chris: In Clinton growing up there was a lot of Puerto Ricans where you were at? Frank: I remember growing up in Hoboken. I want to say 63% of Hoboken was Hispanic. My era growing up in Hoboken in that time was the best years that I believe any child could grown up in. Kids don't know today about 1, 2, 3 red light, Johnny and the Pony, Hot Pizza and Butter, Horse, Marbles, spinning the top, bottle caps in the middle of the street. I used to play handball at 10th Street Park, basketball at 10th Street Park. Hoboken’s a square mile. You really can't get lost once you get acclimated with it. I remember as a kid trying to go to the YMCA, which is on 13 and Washington, where my old firehouse is at and I got lost. I still remember the lamp posts, like a column of two jockeys one on each post holding a lantern. This guy was German and he was a very, I don't know if I'm using the word right but a repressed man. He was very nasty. So I remember going on the stand and he was like, what are you doing here this is my house? I said, I'm lost. I was crying, I was probably around 10 or 11 years old. And I remember finding the YMCA and I remember like saying how am I gonna get home? I don't know how to get home. And I don't remember how I got home but I remember, I got home and I never told �my father nothing about what happened.. But you know, once you got that one experience you learned where you were at. And I was always vigilant of what street I was on. So I know where I could walk. Chris: What do you mean that you could walk or you can't walk in because back then there were places where you couldn't go? Frank: You had certain areas that were hotspots that you had better not got caught in as a kid because people will judge you. Chris: How? Frank: You know you're guilty by association (chuckles)? Chris: It’s because you were brown (laughs) Frank: I don't know if it was specifically that. I mean, for the most part with my friends, We never really had any bad racial issues. But I'll tell you a story that happened right here in this park (Church Square Park) with my sister. It was the Italians against the Puerto Ricans. Something started, there was a guy on a motorcycle and had a girl in the back. She was Puerto Rican. The guy said something and something transpired between the two races. The animosity escalated. Okay, so now it became wherever you saw Italians or wherever you saw Puerto Ricans there was gonna be an issue. So we had the National Guard come into Hoboken. Chris: Are you talking about the riots? Frank: Yeah the riots, it was bad. My sister I forgot who she was with at this park, the Italians were coming from that side and the Boricuas were coming from this side. They were getting closer and closer together and the cops were out all over. So my sister was frantic because she saw the escalation getting out of control. And she was paranoid, and then the cops pulled her and some other people out, thank God. My sister was never the same again. She was always frantic, always paranoid, always scared. Chris: Because she saw the violence? Frank: Because she experienced that and she was never the same after that. Frank: My friends, we grew up together. Irish, German, Italian. And it wasn't a racial thing with us. It was a racist thing with the older folks. Caucasian folks used to tell their children don't hang out with him because he’s Puerto Rican or don't hang out with him because he’s black. And to me, they were more at fault at presenting racism, than we were at fault for accepting the racism. We had to accept it because we had no choice. But my friends we had a world of nationalities. We never had that issue where we had to hide from each other. The racism was mostly in the closet but then it started getting really bad. �Chris: When did you notice it getting bad? Frank: I think just before the gentrification started I started seeing more racism in schools. Segregation, clicks, maybe gangs back in the day. But they were older adults, older tennagers, they used to wear colors. Seeing it was a different perspective because you had people that will not show that they were racist, but deep down inside in their hearts they were. I mean, I've dealt with it numerous times, but I've never took a back seat to it. I’d say listen, I bleed the same color blood and breathe the same air you do. So it didn't become a struggle, it became more of an understanding. But I didn't allow myself to be shut down from whatever others were privileged to do. And I felt well if you can do it, I can do it. Chris: Were you the first Latino fireman? Frank: No, the first latino fireman was Felix Santiago he lives down here at Church Towers. I admired him a lot because when I was a kid I used to watch him and he was always running into buildings without no Scott Bottle. Very little gear on, would go in with a handkerchief. He would go into the building and would come out with somebody. This was back in the 60s, early 70s. I just saw my captain right now sitting outside. Captain Frank Wallington. He was a man that knew his shit. We had a fire in that building right there. I was on a job for maybe a year. Heavy black smoke. I say, hey cap I see you going in there without a bottle? He says, You want to learn how to be a smoke eater? I said yeah, he goes, take a deep breath and follow me. He says, you okay? I said yeah, and he said now, let go of your breath and take a deep breath with the smoke. And I did. I was eating my mocos (snot), I was gagging, coughing. But after a while. I wasn't doing none of that, I was walking in and out. And I learned that from him. He was an original smoke eater. My biggest thing is when I became a fireman I came in where, the oldtimers were there. They were experienced. I learned their style of work ethic in the fire field. Because they were go-getters you know, they didn't hide. They were workers and you worked together as a team. And I was glad that I was raised in that time because these guys taught me how to be a fireman. Beside me asking 25,000 questions you know they were old timers and I was a baby. I was 26 years old when I became a fireman. All the other guys were in their 50s. I learned the pumps first by the high school on 8th and Clinton and that's the rescue 04 engine, which used to be the 06 engine. I remember standing in the back of the fire truck in 1985 bouncing down the street in the back of the fire truck holding onto the sides and I would say, my knees are killing me. They would say, hey kid, when you go in the back and you're standing in the back, you gotta go with the flow. If you bend your knee, the bumps get smoother. Chris: You’ve told me the story before about how you became a fireman. Can you tell me the story again? Frank: Oh, the story about the application? Well, I went to get an application to take the firemans test and unfortunately, when I went, there was no application. Chris: Were there really no applications? �Frank: My suspicion was, in the fire department, you looked at your family, first and foremost, of course. So for me, ,in my personal opinion, they were holding the applications for their families or friends or relatives, what have you. So one day, I came out my house, my mom wanted me to get something from finest (supermarket), which was right across the street from high school which I had to pass a firehouse that when I first came on the job, that's where I was first assigned to. Kind of ironic. When I came out the house, I looked up and said, Oh shit there's a fire in Hoboken. Heavy billowing black smoke from downtown. Now I'm in middle-town, so I could see the smoke dense, it was bad. So I went down the stairs, and made my right hand turn to go towards the High School, which is on Eighth and Clinton. And as I passed the firehouse, the door was open. I said, Oh, shit, the firemen left their door open. So I said, hey let me see if there's an application in the watch booth. So I walked in, there was nobody there, I said, Hello, Hello, nobody was there. I walked in the booth and I saw a pack of yellow paper. And so I took one out and it was the application for the fire department. I could have been selfish and taken the whole pack and went and told my friends, Hey, I got the fireman's application, but I wasn't of that nature. I grabbed one application and put it in my back pocket. went to find this. I went back home and filled the application and sent it in. Back then we didn't have to pay for applications. Now the applications are 35 dollars. So I took the test a couple of months later, I received the civil service notice that I'm taking the test. I believe that was, I want to say 82. Frank: November 13 1985 I became a fireman. And only because Cappiello and Tom Vezzetti were running for mayor. Now, what happened was, we had to go to through that minority quota in the city of Hoboken. And we didn't have that one extra guy so we didn't meet the quota. It had to be either a Hispanic or Black to meet the quota mandated by the state. So I ended up not getting made and we had to go to court. And I started to lose it because I was very upset. I had already taken the test, I passed and came out 26 on the list. And we had to go to court with Judge Sorokin, who was a very angry judge to me at the time, But you know, it was a minority issue and you know, he wanted to know what was going on. Why are we over here in court over a job if there's already a list that was made. Well the thing was that a quota had to be met and they needed another another Hispanic or black body to meet the quota. Us not being on that list is literally why they fought for us to become firefighters. Chris: Who fought for you? Frank: These attorneys which I recall were union attorneys.The judge called in the council and it was kind of scary in the beginning because I said, you know, are we going to make it or not. So from June, we went to court and we lost the case.Then I was wandering around the city in the rain one day. I had just lost my then girlfriend at the time, I lost my apartment and my job. But I was kind of depressed and as I'm walking through sixth and Jefferson or Monroe. So I remember coming up one day and saw Tommy Vezzetti and he said to me, if I win this election, you're going to be a fireman. And I promise you I’ll keep my word. Tommy Vezzetti won the election in November, we won our appeal and he made his firefighters. Chris: Who’s us? �Frank: There were 13 of us. They made us and we got sworn in on November 13 1985. I'm still trying to find pictures from that. And I can't find the pictures from when I got promoted. And somebody's got them out there but you know I lost a lot of pictures that my son had and he I think what happened was he got rid of a box not knowing that had those treasures in there. And especially the plaque there my mom and my dad gave me when I got promoted to captain. It was a, I still think about that plaque now because that was a gift that my mom and my dad gave me and I never got a chance to put it on the wall. Frank: It was a very precarious upbringing in Hoboken with Hispanics and the rest of the world around us, you know, but I learned a lot. I learned how to be respectful. I learned how to be understanding. I learned how not to be judging people because being judgmental in our society today its not something that you want to be. There's too much animosity in this world and children today don't have the upbringing that we had. I think they feel like they're more privileged than we were back in the days because of their upbringing because of like we used to call it back in the day the Silver Spoon. I never tried to be anybody but myself and I think that my father taught me that. He taught me to be the man that I am today. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Oral Histories by Christopher Lopez Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Frank: I think my father mentioned one time that he needed to get on with his life. He needed to make money and in Puerto Rico you couldn't make money. My father came here in 1950. I believe it was 55 maybe or 56 they moved to Hammonton. My sister was born in Hammonton. I was born in Somers Point. But we were living in Atlantic City at the time, but Atlantic City didn't have a maternity hospital. So they shipped my mother out to Somers Point, New Jersey which was the neighboring town. My mom gave birth to me there in Somers Point and then six months later, my father came to Hoboken. Chris: Why did he come to Hoboken? Frank: I want to say he was looking for a better place to stay. We had maybe a little family here. My father, well, he had relatives in Atlantic City, my mother's sister lived there. We had family in Brooklyn, down in Flatbush, and Ditmars was my father's two sisters. And when we came to Hoboken, one of the first places that I remember living on it was on second and River Street where it's all brand new now. Chris: How old were you when you came? Frank: I was six months old. My father grabbed me and my sister and we moved here. I went to all the school systems in the city of Hoboken. I went to David Rue School, which was on third and Park Avenue. From David Rue school, I went to number eight school, which was Sadie F. Leinkauf. When I was, we were moving again, and then I went to number 8 school. From seventh grade to ninth grade I went to Joseph F. Brandt school on ninth and park. And then I went to Hoboken High School from 73 to 76 on eighth and Clinton where I grew up on 715 Clinton Street for many years before we got gentrificated out to the projects. My mother was affected by that. A real estate agent came to my mom's house without, we weren't home, my mom was alone. My father was working, we were at school. And he said to my mother, you know, you gotta move. My mother started crying she says what are you talking about? He says, you got to move we’re selling the building. Just move and I came home from school and saw my mother crying. This guy said, We got to move. So I ran downstairs, I saw the guy come out of the house and I said, what are you doing messing with my mom? He goes, shut up kid, you got to move that's the bottom line. Of course, I got a little verbally abusive, but I was only like 13, 14 years old. And he was an adult already. I still see him around. I want to, every time I see him I want to punch him in the head. But, you know, they threw us down, well, they didn't throw us down to the projects. My mother had a comadre, my sister's godmother who sponsored a confirmation and she said listen, I got no place to stay. I gotta move from Clinton street, can you take care of my boys? And will give me whatever you need. She goes, I'll take care of the boys but I ain't taking the girls because I got five boys on my own. There was eight guys in one apartment, in the projects. We grew up together for a couple, I want to say about a year, close to a year. So, you know, we made it, you know, and then we got to an apartment in the projects. We lived at 310 with them and 311 was connected so we got 311 on the seventh floor. Chris: In Clinton growing up there was a lot of Puerto Ricans where you were at? Frank: I remember growing up in Hoboken. I want to say 63% of Hoboken was Hispanic. My era growing up in Hoboken in that time was the best years that I believe any child could grown up in. Kids don't know today about 1, 2, 3 red light, Johnny and the Pony, Hot Pizza and Butter, Horse, Marbles, spinning the top, bottle caps in the middle of the street. I used to play handball at 10th Street Park, basketball at 10th Street Park. Hoboken’s a square mile. You really can't get lost once you get acclimated with it. I remember as a kid trying to go to the YMCA, which is on 13 and Washington, where my old firehouse is at and I got lost. I still remember the lamp posts, like a column of two jockeys one on each post holding a lantern. This guy was German and he was a very, I don't know if I'm using the word right but a repressed man. He was very nasty. So I remember going on the stand and he was like, what are you doing here this is my house? I said, I'm lost. I was crying, I was probably around 10 or 11 years old. And I remember finding the YMCA and I remember like saying how am I gonna get home? I don't know how to get home. And I don't remember how I got home but I remember, I got home and I never told my father nothing about what happened.. But you know, once you got that one experience you learned where you were at. And I was always vigilant of what street I was on. So I know where I could walk. Chris: What do you mean that you could walk or you can't walk in because back then there were places where you couldn't go? Frank: You had certain areas that were hotspots that you had better not got caught in as a kid because people will judge you. Chris: How? Frank: You know you're guilty by association (chuckles)? Chris: It’s because you were brown (laughs) Frank: I don't know if it was specifically that. I mean, for the most part with my friends, We never really had any bad racial issues. But I'll tell you a story that happened right here in this park (Church Square Park) with my sister. It was the Italians against the Puerto Ricans. Something started, there was a guy on a motorcycle and had a girl in the back. She was Puerto Rican. The guy said something and something transpired between the two races. The animosity escalated. Okay, so now it became wherever you saw Italians or wherever you saw Puerto Ricans there was gonna be an issue. So we had the National Guard come into Hoboken. Chris: Are you talking about the riots? Frank: Yeah the riots, it was bad. My sister I forgot who she was with at this park, the Italians were coming from that side and the Boricuas were coming from this side. They were getting closer and closer together and the cops were out all over. So my sister was frantic because she saw the escalation getting out of control. And she was paranoid, and then the cops pulled her and some other people out, thank God. My sister was never the same again. She was always frantic, always paranoid, always scared. Chris: Because she saw the violence? Frank: Because she experienced that and she was never the same after that. Frank: My friends, we grew up together. Irish, German, Italian. And it wasn't a racial thing with us. It was a racist thing with the older folks. Caucasian folks used to tell their children don't hang out with him because he’s Puerto Rican or don't hang out with him because he’s black. And to me, they were more at fault at presenting racism, than we were at fault for accepting the racism. We had to accept it because we had no choice. But my friends we had a world of nationalities. We never had that issue where we had to hide from each other. The racism was mostly in the closet but then it started getting really bad. Chris: When did you notice it getting bad? Frank: I think just before the gentrification started I started seeing more racism in schools. Segregation, clicks, maybe gangs back in the day. But they were older adults, older tennagers, they used to wear colors. Seeing it was a different perspective because you had people that will not show that they were racist, but deep down inside in their hearts they were. I mean, I've dealt with it numerous times, but I've never took a back seat to it. I’d say listen, I bleed the same color blood and breathe the same air you do. So it didn't become a struggle, it became more of an understanding. But I didn't allow myself to be shut down from whatever others were privileged to do. And I felt well if you can do it, I can do it. Chris: Were you the first Latino fireman? Frank: No, the first latino fireman was Felix Santiago he lives down here at Church Towers. I admired him a lot because when I was a kid I used to watch him and he was always running into buildings without no Scott Bottle. Very little gear on, would go in with a handkerchief. He would go into the building and would come out with somebody. This was back in the 60s, early 70s. I just saw my captain right now sitting outside. Captain Frank Wallington. He was a man that knew his shit. We had a fire in that building right there. I was on a job for maybe a year. Heavy black smoke. I say, hey cap I see you going in there without a bottle? He says, You want to learn how to be a smoke eater? I said yeah, he goes, take a deep breath and follow me. He says, you okay? I said yeah, and he said now, let go of your breath and take a deep breath with the smoke. And I did. I was eating my mocos (snot), I was gagging, coughing. But after a while. I wasn't doing none of that, I was walking in and out. And I learned that from him. He was an original smoke eater. My biggest thing is when I became a fireman I came in where, the old-timers were there. They were experienced. I learned their style of work ethic in the fire field. Because they were go-getters you know, they didn't hide. They were workers and you worked together as a team. And I was glad that I was raised in that time because these guys taught me how to be a fireman. Beside me asking 25,000 questions you know they were old timers and I was a baby. I was 26 years old when I became a fireman. All the other guys were in their 50s. I learned the pumps first by the high school on 8th and Clinton and that's the rescue 04 engine, which used to be the 06 engine. I remember standing in the back of the fire truck in 1985 bouncing down the street in the back of the fire truck holding onto the sides and I would say, my knees are killing me. They would say, hey kid, when you go in the back and you're standing in the back, you gotta go with the flow. If you bend your knee, the bumps get smoother. Chris: You’ve told me the story before about how you became a fireman. Can you tell me the story again? Frank: Oh, the story about the application? Well, I went to get an application to take the firemans test and unfortunately, when I went, there was no application. Chris: Were there really no applications? Frank: My suspicion was, in the fire department, you looked at your family, first and foremost, of course. So for me, ,in my personal opinion, they were holding the applications for their families or friends or relatives, what have you. So one day, I came out my house, my mom wanted me to get something from finest (supermarket), which was right across the street from high school which I had to pass a firehouse that when I first came on the job, that's where I was first assigned to. Kind of ironic. When I came out the house, I looked up and said, Oh shit there's a fire in Hoboken. Heavy billowing black smoke from downtown. Now I'm in middle-town, so I could see the smoke dense, it was bad. So I went down the stairs, and made my right hand turn to go towards the High School, which is on Eighth and Clinton. And as I passed the firehouse, the door was open. I said, Oh, shit, the firemen left their door open. So I said, hey let me see if there's an application in the watch booth. So I walked in, there was nobody there, I said, Hello, Hello, nobody was there. I walked in the booth and I saw a pack of yellow paper. And so I took one out and it was the application for the fire department. I could have been selfish and taken the whole pack and went and told my friends, Hey, I got the fireman's application, but I wasn't of that nature. I grabbed one application and put it in my back pocket. went to find this. I went back home and filled the application and sent it in. Back then we didn't have to pay for applications. Now the applications are 35 dollars. So I took the test a couple of months later, I received the civil service notice that I'm taking the test. I believe that was, I want to say 82. Frank: November 13 1985 I became a fireman. And only because Cappiello and Tom Vezzetti were running for mayor. Now, what happened was, we had to go to through that minority quota in the city of Hoboken. And we didn't have that one extra guy so we didn't meet the quota. It had to be either a Hispanic or Black to meet the quota mandated by the state. So I ended up not getting made and we had to go to court. And I started to lose it because I was very upset. I had already taken the test, I passed and came out 26 on the list. And we had to go to court with Judge Sorokin, who was a very angry judge to me at the time, But you know, it was a minority issue and you know, he wanted to know what was going on. Why are we over here in court over a job if there's already a list that was made. Well the thing was that a quota had to be met and they needed another another Hispanic or black body to meet the quota. Us not being on that list is literally why they fought for us to become firefighters. Chris: Who fought for you? Frank: These attorneys which I recall were union attorneys.The judge called in the council and it was kind of scary in the beginning because I said, you know, are we going to make it or not. So from June, we went to court and we lost the case.Then I was wandering around the city in the rain one day. I had just lost my then girlfriend at the time, I lost my apartment and my job. But I was kind of depressed and as I'm walking through sixth and Jefferson or Monroe. So I remember coming up one day and saw Tommy Vezzetti and he said to me, if I win this election, you're going to be a fireman. And I promise you I’ll keep my word. Tommy Vezzetti won the election in November, we won our appeal and he made his firefighters. Chris: Who’s us? Frank: There were 13 of us. They made us and we got sworn in on November 13 1985. I'm still trying to find pictures from that. And I can't find the pictures from when I got promoted. And somebody's got them out there but you know I lost a lot of pictures that my son had and he I think what happened was he got rid of a box not knowing that had those treasures in there. And especially the plaque there my mom and my dad gave me when I got promoted to captain. It was a, I still think about that plaque now because that was a gift that my mom and my dad gave me and I never got a chance to put it on the wall. Frank: It was a very precarious upbringing in Hoboken with Hispanics and the rest of the world around us, you know, but I learned a lot. I learned how to be respectful. I learned how to be understanding. I learned how not to be judging people because being judgmental in our society today its not something that you want to be. There's too much animosity in this world and children today don't have the upbringing that we had. I think they feel like they're more privileged than we were back in the days because of their upbringing because of like we used to call it back in the day the Silver Spoon. I never tried to be anybody but myself and I think that my father taught me that. He taught me to be the man that I am today. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Christopher López Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Frank “Sparky” Guzman, was born in Somersett, New Jersey in 1958. Frank’s parents migrated to the United States in the 1950’s in search of a better life. They landed in Atlantic City and at age 6 months, Frank and his family moved to Hoboken, where they lived at 715 Clinton Street. His family grew to encompass 5 kids in total, Frank being the second born and first son. As a boy, Frank attended the Rue School and even skipped 2nd Grade to enter 3rd Grade at P.S. #8. He developed a love for basketball as a middle schooler at the Joseph F. Brandt School, and was part of the championship winning basketball team under Coach Palmieri at Hoboken High School. Upon graduating from Hoboken High, Frank felt a call to serve. He lost a lot of friends in the Hoboken fires from 1979-84 and wanted to protect his community. He finally got his chance in 1985 when newly elected Mayor Vezzetti appointed Frank to the Hoboken Fire Department. As a firefighter, Frank served his community faithfully for 25 years and had stints at each of Hoboken’s four firehouses. Frank is now the dad of 3 kids, stepdad to 4 stepkids, grandpa of 12 grandkids, and great-grandpa to 3 great-grandkids. He notes with an immense amount of pride that his family is like the United Nations - global and multicultural through and through. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Frank Guzman, Oral history interview transcription. Subject The topic of the resource Interviews Puerto Ricans--New Jersey Oral history Description An account of the resource A transcription of the oral history interview conducted with Frank Guzman. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Christopher López. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource Interview conducted on Thursday, June, 27, 2024. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource 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. Note that the written permission of the copyright owners and/or other rights holders (such as publicity and/or privacy rights) is required for distribution, reproduction, or other use of protected items beyond that allowed by fair use or other statutory exemptions. Responsibility for making an independent legal assessment of an item and securing any necessary permissions ultimately rests with persons desiring to use the item. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Oral history (transcription) Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1950s through 1980s Relation A related resource See "Ray Guzman, Oral history interview transcription.," https://puertoricanexperienceinhoboken.omeka.net/items/show/20 displacement fire gentrification Hoboken Hoboken fires Hoboken riots oral history Puerto Rican Puerto Rico racism riots https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/86056/archive/files/8e3a349da4b250583db98c2e9c52fa94.pdf?Expires=1774483200&Signature=HoJdjTOp9gH5b-vUdPiY8Ng1%7EG9qys4JV866AbN6deNfTJJ8MZLUrWHNH3XzQ5w7wlDmS5fgM7%7EN1RkeD4C6uPPxYp6eAsvd3ToopPpRtetSVtYaCxpWeK1r%7E7adVXJLGb7i4oeNFSZI0fJ%7EqP8VkCVC-1-p3kG5lAW98-YcPlSBuEYiIc1OzBZZz2x8zRf5wrLwJjKh3eu7uwdhnOUlrgHjw%7Ejp%7EQ%7E38pu6U3UTLbsxAfk5aI0Kkm1GyW29nw9G20uZu3mNhqoj1wBIbuQAL1vGlqOD-PLyBjfS926WyEqghuBEVshUrLEkAViuv02KUoKIpXRENybFle4y8lvUPQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM cbc45ca3f76aa426397ee103efa830d2 PDF Text Text �������� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Oral Histories by Christopher Lopez Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Frank Guzman, Photos. Subject The topic of the resource Interviews Puerto Ricans--New Jersey Oral history Description An account of the resource A collection of photographs from Frank Guzman. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Christopher López. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource Photo collection created in 2024. 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Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Type The nature or genre of the resource Still Image Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Photograph collection created in 2024 displacement fire gentrification Hoboken Hoboken fires Hoboken riots oral history Puerto Rican Puerto Rico racism riots https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/86056/archive/files/bc5ebfe95f556d72c03a20bb138cd507.pdf?Expires=1774483200&Signature=lw8ger-oVC%7EVYi5A72ZfP4rvQbewzPiztVIyD7-AUbzv7eQKDvtu4g1nKnLbNAdUPjHQniZ%7EFCsrh4WTBxP9lskN7PksjXTV4Z8JEn785xBJQdr86Q7GZQfJ%7EHPBjBgFQ%7EsSlXk-yZriT6rD9ZmFaJYiRw%7Ef7iYSSTkPN5mQAJmu584qqAd-yfgqWUuyc3PlDVPwHYleEqpz0CXKqMkrIqicGIwLyCJMhirujV9M3ahf9mRKoPjGjSf0F6hQfmUqBIKSMc%7EXJe4Lrxm69DwHVZq0fKFTqP9u8jx-pgyWtNsKqEp5aMKH%7EYjgHGOjtOyczWrUUrL1QGin2NNC%7EllL1w__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 6180e9cf3803cf945f4978dba6317621 PDF Text Text Transcript 2023_12_22_INTVW_YvetteRamos_231222_1315 Yvette Ramos (daughter of prominent Puerto Rican activist Juan Garcia) This interview was conducted on December, 22, 2023 Topics Discussed: ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● The gentrification of the city and the arson fires Remembering victims of the fires (schoolmates) Juan Garcia iInterviewees father) a prominent Puerto Rican political activist CUNA (Citizens United for New Action) Violence towards Puerto Rican activist movements and organizations Racism in Hoboken Puerto Rican community in Hoboken Protests Mayoral Elections Pride in Organizing and Protest Fear The denial of city permits for Puerto Rican festivities Puerto Rican Block Parties Recent Fires in Union City Growing up in Hoboken Keys Words: Pinter Hotel, CUNA, Juan Garcia, Bombing, Cappiello, Racism, Puerto Rican community, Protests, Mayoral Elections, Chants, threats, Pride, Fear, Inequality, Festivities, Bloodshed, 5:07 / 10:18 Yvette: Yeah, it's hard when you try when you know, you want to communicate with people that either went through it or know about it, but one, it's hard to talk about, and two, to find a lot of people from back then, and, uh, me at least when I was so young, I didn't know the older community back then, you know, it was all kids or whatever, you know, but then losing friends was, you know, during that time, sad, who was my age, you know? Chris: So you had friends that you ended up losing? Yvette: Yeah, it was just one boy.. And for the life of me, I tried to remember his name, because he was like, was so close to me, but I couldn't. I can't remember his name. And I think I tried to block out a lot of that time. I really did. Because it was hard. It was like, the day before we were hanging out. I think we were playing pinball at my mom's store because she had the store right across the street. �And then in the middle of the night, all hell breaks loose. And then in that same fire there was a woman, young girl you know, just had a baby, the baby was maybe weeks old, a month or so. And her husband or boyfriend at the time he was working like a shift during the night. The fire breaks out they found her at a window with a baby clutched. You know that one story? And she that's how they found her with the baby pushed by the window. And when they went to lift her up to take her out that's when everybody saw. Then her husband or boyfriend, after that lost his mind. Like he wasn't the same and he ended up on the streets. They blame themselves a lot. He literally wanted to find the person. All of them are deemed to be arsons at the time, it was like they were trying to get rid of everybody. But yeah, that was a hard one. You know my mom went, whatever time that wasn't in the middle of the night. I was out the window screaming my eyes out. And she went down and opened the store so that the firemen can go in and figured they have to drink milk, because of the smoke inhalation. So she just opened up the store and started giving the milk and coffee and whatever they wanted families that were already out or that made it out. She made sure that they, you know, they're safe and if it they needed something. I remember the one one guy that he had his wife and I don't know how many kids he ran downstairs and told her to throw the kids out the window. And he caught them one by one caught them all. And when she jumped she lived. So he was able to save that family like that. I think later on there was a rumor like how did he get out with his whole family but people didn't know the story behind that. Beautiful beautiful. Chris: Do you remember the family’s name? Yvette: I can't remember that's what I'm trying because we were so young. I was trying to even look through the through the history and I can't remember the name. It was a black family. And the kids weer young, little, I don't know how many there were either, and I know he threw one one by one out the window. We were watching all that happening. The one girl that jumped another girl friend of mine from school, she jumped out the window. She wound up landing feet first. And when she did, her legs came up and her hips just collapsed into her into the upper part of her so she was like in full body cast. I don't know for how long. We saw that too, so. That was the biggest one for me. Then there was the twelfth street, I think there was one and twelfth street and Washington Street. Well I didn't get to, well my mom tried to keep me from going to the Pinter to see what was going on but we weren't here because where I live, I was at 116 14th Street right on the first floor above the bar, that was a bar there. We were in fear, we thought it could be us, we could be next, it's a corner property that they were looking for these properties like that. Nice, good big building. It was bad, yea. 10:25 / 15:38 Yvette: I remember that through most of them my father would organize the marches. And with the group of people that you know, he used to belong to the CUNA, you know what that is, Citizens United in New Action. �Chris: They had an office on Washington Street, no? Yvette: On Willow, he had a few places there was one on Willow further down on ninth or something where they bombed. Because they really didn't want him there. Because he was a big, big, big voice for the city and for the people. City Hall they hated him. Cappiello was back then was the man right? Chris: Yea, well thats why I ask about your father right? Because he was a pivotal figure but there isn’t a lot of information about him. Yvette: He wasn't liked. He wasn't wanted, he was hated to the point that they bombed the office, he wasn't there, thank God. But they they, it was either a message to shut the hell up and stop, or they expected him to be there. And what did he do? Shut it down and opened up further up on 10th and Willow. I mean, he wasn't going to stop. He wasn't going to stop. Chris: Why was your dad doing these things? Why do you think your dad was doing these things? Yvette: I can't even I don't know. I don't know the back history of it. But I know that from the little that my mom has told me that he kind of started in New York. When they had those protests over there, you know, Spanish Harlem up there. He was sort of part of that. Remembering I guess, just remember when they had the big protests where they put, I don't know if you know the story, but they have put the garbage out onto the street. Because they they just said, well, we don't want to pick it up then this is what's gonna happen. They started burning it. And so he was kind of part of that history. And I think that stuck to him where, you know, the unfairness, he wanted to make sure that there was a quality and it wasn't. So from the city and coming down to here and then seeing what's going on here. And sitting, seeing the people that were sitting in the seats at City Hall. And mean, there's no other way to say but the racism was strong. Yvette: Hoboken was majority Puerto Rican. It was very, very much Puerto Rican. So he wanted to, I guess, make a difference. Make a difference in their life and make a difference for the city too. So they didn't have a voice and he was their voice. And he would hold these meetings with them and he would go out in the streets and protest and to go to City Hall. I even remember an incident when they were electing the mayor and one of the elections and he was inside and we because I went with him everywhere. We're all outside just waiting. And he just said he tells me as an 11, 12 year old, “if you see me come out with a smile on my face, we're good, but if you see me come out with my face, that face, we start the chant”. And what was the chant, so he said it was basically recall, recall, recall and to keep repeating it no matter where he went no matter what he did, no matter what happened to keep repeating it. And so when I saw him come out with the face, and he said now, I went outside and he started yelling my little, my little self recall, recall (laughs). Everybody would hear them call, recall, recall, and it was big. �16:29 / 22:00 Yvette: (Anecdote from a protest on washington Street) The homeowners, basically were kind of like giving in to whatever, like they wanted either their buildings burned down, either for insurance or for the money that they were being offered at the time, which all the rumors were, because they wanted to make it what it is today with the condos and stuff. And so they wanted to kill this person and they surrounded her (a building owner). Cops were all around, but they (protesters) weren't letting the cops in. When my dad came out, the cops surrounded him. It was almost like in a movie, you see them, then the whole crowd move away from that person and surround the cops that were surrounding my dad. And they were saying you're not taking him, you're going to have to go through all of us. They shit their pants, they were like, ah, you know, they're saying why just, you know, tell you people and to calm down and let it go. And he goes, Well, you're gonna have to get away. Let me go. Because you know, in other words, I'm sure there was other words, I just can't remember the words but basically they had us separate and then this crowd surrounded my dad to protect him. And it was during that time because of the fires. They were they just any homeowner that they thought was with these people that wanted to burn the city down and burn out the Puerto Ricans. That's what he was trying to protect. You know? Chris: It seems like your father was loved. Yvette: He was, he was loved by the people, he was. Chris: Was he feared? Yvette: He wasn't feared by them. He was feared by City Hall because he would not go away. He would not shut up. I mean, to the point of bombing his office, they you know, they just didn't want him there. Chris: Do you know of anyone in the city today that would say my family is still here because your father fought for them to be here? Yvette: I’m sure there are, I can't, I don't remember names. There was a lot of people obviously on Willow Avenue because that's where his kind of territory was, but he was protected the most. All of it down those blocks, he would hang out on the stoops with them and all this stuff. And he was up one thing I also remember when, whenever he was with me, we would cross the street. And a car would go like this (gesture for them to cross the street). He said, “don't move” and he would tell the car to go and I always found that strange until one day, he did it all the time, and I said why do you, why if they're giving us a chance to cross, that why don't you let us you know why don't we? He goes because we don't know who they are. They could be asking us to cross to run us over. And so that was that fear also and obviously I grew up with that. So wherever I go when I'm at a corner until this day, if somebody goes like this (gestures to cross) I'm looking at the light to make sure it's red and if there’s no red and it's just whatever or if it’s a stop sign I �go but it was nothing, um go (gestures for the car to go first). It stayed in my brain. He never let me cross the street if somebody said Go, because they were offering it was a crazy time. But every for every fire that would happen, and they would, you know, bring the structure down to rubble, we'd have a march and throughout the march in Hoboken, it was it was kind of planned where we would march to each location, stop at that burned location, they would either have a prayer, or he would say something. Noy say, but scream stuff, X persons died here. And whatever, the next one, it would be like, you know, the blood was shed here from our people, and blah, blah, blah, you know, all those things that, that he had. Chris: That needed to be said. Yvette: Yeah. And then we would just march, march, march, and then we'd always wound up at the city hall. He’d make his big speech there, and then we, you know, everybody goes their separate ways. And we did a lot of those. And he did like, he did organize them more, a lot of them. But when I was looking through some of the history myself, it never said that he did that. It said that other people would organize it and he was just kind of a part of it, or it was and it's sad because I had recordings, tapes of his meetings, some of them from City Hall, some of them in his meetings with the people what they were going to do. And you could see the feel the intensity in his voice and how he would speak and everything. And I can't I lost them, for the life of me, I can't find them and I'm sad about that. Chris: Did you move? Yvette: I moved a few times, so but yeah, I had those recordings and I can't find them. I'm sure there's somewhere in a old box somewhere but I've moved so many times. I don't know. Chris: Where was your mom during all this? 22:05 / 26:50 Yvette: She wouldn't like she would go to some of the protests or the marches but not like she had you know, she had attended the store (Yvette’s mother, Delia, owned a grocery store in Hoboken). But yeah, she went through, she went through it too. They were amicable that you know, obviously for me for my sake. She didn't agree with a lot of the things that he did or maybe included me in a lot of times I would just add one database and she wouldn't know what was going because I wanted to be a part of that. I don't know why that age. I'm glad I was. Chris: How old was he when he moved here? Yvette: Yeah, he was young but yeah, it was yeah, he was butr my grandmother Chris: His mother? �Yvette: Yeah, she was from Puerto Rico. And she lived a few places around town as well, always in fear. You know, with my aunt and my uncle somewhere. But yeah, he lived mostly with her but at some point he started living in the office, I think the tenth and Willow one, he started actually living sleeping there. And because it was that's another reason I think they couldn’t stand him because it was a nonprofit. Right? So he wasn't getting paid for what he was doing it was just from his free will and people would donate like whatever he, his needs were or whatever. Never asked for a dime from anybody. He would do a lot of events. Block parties, hard for him to get permits, but they could not. They couldn't deny it all the time. Because if you have, you know, what's good for the goose is good for the gander. You have to, again, that's the equality. Well, how come so and so el blanquito can have a block party and all this, but then we can't have ours and Hispanic events, you know. So in order to not hear his big voice, they made sure, you know, they wanted to keep it calm, they would approve his permits for it. But he had a lot of those he did a lot on the block, obviously. He had some on Washington. I remember down river road before it was what it is today. So yeah, mucho baile, a lot of and dancing. He would get orquestas from wherever and they would come in. And it was always obviously the, you know, the Hispanic community. And they did ask for donations, because again, it was to help the families that from the fires to help the organization. stay afloat because they (the city) were not helping. 36:27 / 38:31 Yvette: Like now, it's like when they say when it rains it pours. Like recently that in Union City they kept having one fire after the other after the other are suspicious on why? Those of us that lived during that time in Hoboken first thing that came to my mind is another Hoboken, that's what they're trying to do. And you know kind of died down a little bit but it was one after the other every week there was a fire in Union City. And you see it coming up the way it is right so. And if I didn't know, the back history of what happened here and lived through it I wouldn't like oh my god such a coincidence. There are no coincidences. Chris: Its cause and effect homie (laughs) its context. Do not live without context; It's a dangerous business. Yvette: To this day when I come back because obviously my sister lives here and you know, I have some friends and stuff but you know, I come down. But just coming down sometimes driving down and I’ll pass by obviously the places, you know that some of those memories will come back. And then you know, it's like I'm driving and you’ll see the blanquitos that just cross the street, not giving two flying shits about nothing. You know, and it's, you know, it's hard to say but it's like, you know, if you only knew the that desire, I want to just hit you in my car. Because you are you have this privilege, because there was bloodshed for it. You would not be walking these streets if it wasn't for the blood that was shed here. 45:09 / Chris: I’d like to see pictures if you have? �Yvette: I look through her (mother) albums. She has a lot of pictures. One of them the album, the museum book. There's a picture of my grandfather and my my brother. My brothers, my grandfather and my mom, grandmother on her side, my mom's side sitting on the stoop across the street where from where they live that 161 14th Street used to be like something else obviously. So they live that 161 My grandfather had a cuchfrito right downstairs so he was the owner of the cuchifrito. And my mom took over the cuchifrito then that disappeared once he passed away (Delia’s husband Monroy) so it's just all this history back then everything. And for us everything was on 14th Street because we would you know we're up and down that's where my grandmother lived. That's when my mom came to live with my older brother there's with her and all this stuff so. Well, we have pictures of I think I think there's a picture that mommy has when we were sitting on that stoop. I remember and back then even young, I would be able to go up and up and down the street and the block and everybody watched out for you. You know, like, we were being raised by the, by the village. I couldn't go down to 10th Street park, a little older now, teenage years, and you know, I would smoke my cigarettes over there, escondida. And my mother would find out because there was no secrets. Yeah she, she went one day and I actually jumped out of the what do you call it, the gazebo. I saw her coming up the steps I'm like this, I'm like, uuu, and I jumped out and I ran home and I got my beating that day. Somebody, one of those viejas told her that I was there hanging out. I was young, I was really young. I shouldn't have been doing that anyway but whatever it was back then. It's like now I tell my daughter you don't know what we, we, we drank from a hose, we, our pool was the pompa from the, from the corner, when we put a sprinkler on. And that's where you know, close to block. Nobody gave a shit that back then and that's where we we did our you know, we had our fun and we survived you know kick the can playing and all this stuff and so it was those fun times and you would like you know playing like that back then. She, my daughter came to me once said oh no we were playing this new game called manhunt. I'm like, I started laughing and laughing and laughing and I sat back I said listen my child manhunt is older than me, and I played it back in the day and we now you have a fear of going into hiding wherever you have to like very, back then we went into people's friggin houses that we didn't even know. We're playing manhunt! Okay, go hide under the behind the sofa what up because back then it's like people wherever and you were protected. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Oral Histories by Christopher Lopez Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound 5:07 / 10:18 Yvette: Yeah, it's hard when you try when you know, you want to communicate with people that either went through it or know about it, but one, it's hard to talk about, and two, to find a lot of people from back then, and, uh, me at least when I was so young, I didn't know the older community back then, you know, it was all kids or whatever, you know, but then losing friends was, you know, during that time, sad, who was my age, you know? Chris: So you had friends that you ended up losing? Yvette: Yeah, it was just one boy.. And for the life of me, I tried to remember his name, because he was like, was so close to me, but I couldn't. I can't remember his name. And I think I tried to block out a lot of that time. I really did. Because it was hard. It was like, the day before we were hanging out. I think we were playing pinball at my mom's store because she had the store right across the street. And then in the middle of the night, all hell breaks loose. And then in that same fire there was a woman, young girl you know, just had a baby, the baby was maybe weeks old, a month or so. And her husband or boyfriend at the time he was working like a shift during the night. The fire breaks out they found her at a window with a baby clutched. You know that one story? And she that's how they found her with the baby pushed by the window. And when they went to lift her up to take her out that's when everybody saw. Then her husband or boyfriend, after that lost his mind. Like he wasn't the same and he ended up on the streets. They blame themselves a lot. He literally wanted to find the person. All of them are deemed to be arsons at the time, it was like they were trying to get rid of everybody. But yeah, that was a hard one. You know my mom went, whatever time that wasn't in the middle of the night. I was out the window screaming my eyes out. And she went down and opened the store so that the firemen can go in and figured they have to drink milk, because of the smoke inhalation. So she just opened up the store and started giving the milk and coffee and whatever they wanted families that were already out or that made it out. She made sure that they, you know, they're safe and if it they needed something. I remember the one one guy that he had his wife and I don't know how many kids he ran downstairs and told her to throw the kids out the window. And he caught them one by one caught them all. And when she jumped she lived. So he was able to save that family like that. I think later on there was a rumor like how did he get out with his whole family but people didn't know the story behind that. Beautiful beautiful. Chris: Do you remember the family’s name? Yvette: I can't remember that's what I'm trying because we were so young. I was trying to even look through the through the history and I can't remember the name. It was a black family. And the kids weer young, little, I don't know how many there were either, and I know he threw one one by one out the window. We were watching all that happening. The one girl that jumped another girl friend of mine from school, she jumped out the window. She wound up landing feet first. And when she did, her legs came up and her hips just collapsed into her into the upper part of her so she was like in full body cast. I don't know for how long. We saw that too, so. That was the biggest one for me. Then there was the twelfth street, I think there was one and twelfth street and Washington Street. Well I didn't get to, well my mom tried to keep me from going to the Pinter to see what was going on but we weren't here because where I live, I was at 116 14th Street right on the first floor above the bar, that was a bar there. We were in fear, we thought it could be us, we could be next, it's a corner property that they were looking for these properties like that. Nice, good big building. It was bad, yea. 10:25 / 15:38 Yvette: I remember that through most of them my father would organize the marches. And with the group of people that you know, he used to belong to the CUNA, you know what that is, Citizens United in New Action. Chris: They had an office on Washington Street, no? Yvette: On Willow, he had a few places there was one on Willow further down on ninth or something where they bombed. Because they really didn't want him there. Because he was a big, big, big voice for the city and for the people. City Hall they hated him. Cappiello was back then was the man right? Chris: Yea, well thats why I ask about your father right? Because he was a pivotal figure but there isn’t a lot of information about him. Yvette: He wasn't liked. He wasn't wanted, he was hated to the point that they bombed the office, he wasn't there, thank God. But they they, it was either a message to shut the hell up and stop, or they expected him to be there. And what did he do? Shut it down and opened up further up on 10th and Willow. I mean, he wasn't going to stop. He wasn't going to stop. Chris: Why was your dad doing these things? Why do you think your dad was doing these things? Yvette: I can't even I don't know. I don't know the back history of it. But I know that from the little that my mom has told me that he kind of started in New York. When they had those protests over there, you know, Spanish Harlem up there. He was sort of part of that. Remembering I guess, just remember when they had the big protests where they put, I don't know if you know the story, but they have put the garbage out onto the street. Because they they just said, well, we don't want to pick it up then this is what's gonna happen. They started burning it. And so he was kind of part of that history. And I think that stuck to him where, you know, the unfairness, he wanted to make sure that there was a quality and it wasn't. So from the city and coming down to here and then seeing what's going on here. And sitting, seeing the people that were sitting in the seats at City Hall. And mean, there's no other way to say but the racism was strong. Yvette: Hoboken was majority Puerto Rican. It was very, very much Puerto Rican. So he wanted to, I guess, make a difference. Make a difference in their life and make a difference for the city too. So they didn't have a voice and he was their voice. And he would hold these meetings with them and he would go out in the streets and protest and to go to City Hall. I even remember an incident when they were electing the mayor and one of the elections and he was inside and we because I went with him everywhere. We're all outside just waiting. And he just said he tells me as an 11, 12 year old, “if you see me come out with a smile on my face, we're good, but if you see me come out with my face, that face, we start the chant”. And what was the chant, so he said it was basically recall, recall, recall and to keep repeating it no matter where he went no matter what he did, no matter what happened to keep repeating it. And so when I saw him come out with the face, and he said now, I went outside and he started yelling my little, my little self recall, recall (laughs). Everybody would hear them call, recall, recall, and it was big. 16:29 / 22:00 Yvette: (Anecdote from a protest on washington Street) The homeowners, basically were kind of like giving in to whatever, like they wanted either their buildings burned down, either for insurance or for the money that they were being offered at the time, which all the rumors were, because they wanted to make it what it is today with the condos and stuff. And so they wanted to kill this person and they surrounded her (a building owner). Cops were all around, but they (protesters) weren't letting the cops in. When my dad came out, the cops surrounded him. It was almost like in a movie, you see them, then the whole crowd move away from that person and surround the cops that were surrounding my dad. And they were saying you're not taking him, you're going to have to go through all of us. They shit their pants, they were like, ah, you know, they're saying why just, you know, tell you people and to calm down and let it go. And he goes, Well, you're gonna have to get away. Let me go. Because you know, in other words, I'm sure there was other words, I just can't remember the words but basically they had us separate and then this crowd surrounded my dad to protect him. And it was during that time because of the fires. They were they just any homeowner that they thought was with these people that wanted to burn the city down and burn out the Puerto Ricans. That's what he was trying to protect. You know? Chris: It seems like your father was loved. Yvette: He was, he was loved by the people, he was. Chris: Was he feared? Yvette: He wasn't feared by them. He was feared by City Hall because he would not go away. He would not shut up. I mean, to the point of bombing his office, they you know, they just didn't want him there. Chris: Do you know of anyone in the city today that would say my family is still here because your father fought for them to be here? Yvette: I’m sure there are, I can't, I don't remember names. There was a lot of people obviously on Willow Avenue because that's where his kind of territory was, but he was protected the most. All of it down those blocks, he would hang out on the stoops with them and all this stuff. And he was up one thing I also remember when, whenever he was with me, we would cross the street. And a car would go like this (gesture for them to cross the street). He said, “don't move” and he would tell the car to go and I always found that strange until one day, he did it all the time, and I said why do you, why if they're giving us a chance to cross, that why don't you let us you know why don't we? He goes because we don't know who they are. They could be asking us to cross to run us over. And so that was that fear also and obviously I grew up with that. So wherever I go when I'm at a corner until this day, if somebody goes like this (gestures to cross) I'm looking at the light to make sure it's red and if there’s no red and it's just whatever or if it’s a stop sign I go but it was nothing, um go (gestures for the car to go first). It stayed in my brain. He never let me cross the street if somebody said Go, because they were offering it was a crazy time. But every for every fire that would happen, and they would, you know, bring the structure down to rubble, we'd have a march and throughout the march in Hoboken, it was it was kind of planned where we would march to each location, stop at that burned location, they would either have a prayer, or he would say something. Noy say, but scream stuff, X persons died here. And whatever, the next one, it would be like, you know, the blood was shed here from our people, and blah, blah, blah, you know, all those things that, that he had. Chris: That needed to be said. Yvette: Yeah. And then we would just march, march, march, and then we'd always wound up at the city hall. He’d make his big speech there, and then we, you know, everybody goes their separate ways. And we did a lot of those. And he did like, he did organize them more, a lot of them. But when I was looking through some of the history myself, it never said that he did that. It said that other people would organize it and he was just kind of a part of it, or it was and it's sad because I had recordings, tapes of his meetings, some of them from City Hall, some of them in his meetings with the people what they were going to do. And you could see the feel the intensity in his voice and how he would speak and everything. And I can't I lost them, for the life of me, I can't find them and I'm sad about that. Chris: Did you move? Yvette: I moved a few times, so but yeah, I had those recordings and I can't find them. I'm sure there's somewhere in a old box somewhere but I've moved so many times. I don't know. Chris: Where was your mom during all this? 22:05 / 26:50 Yvette: She wouldn't like she would go to some of the protests or the marches but not like she had you know, she had attended the store (Yvette’s mother, Delia, owned a grocery store in Hoboken). But yeah, she went through, she went through it too. They were amicable that you know, obviously for me for my sake. She didn't agree with a lot of the things that he did or maybe included me in a lot of times I would just add one database and she wouldn't know what was going because I wanted to be a part of that. I don't know why that age. I'm glad I was. Chris: How old was he when he moved here? Yvette: Yeah, he was young but yeah, it was yeah, he was butr my grandmother Chris: His mother? Yvette: Yeah, she was from Puerto Rico. And she lived a few places around town as well, always in fear. You know, with my aunt and my uncle somewhere. But yeah, he lived mostly with her but at some point he started living in the office, I think the tenth and Willow one, he started actually living sleeping there. And because it was that's another reason I think they couldn’t stand him because it was a nonprofit. Right? So he wasn't getting paid for what he was doing it was just from his free will and people would donate like whatever he, his needs were or whatever. Never asked for a dime from anybody. He would do a lot of events. Block parties, hard for him to get permits, but they could not. They couldn't deny it all the time. Because if you have, you know, what's good for the goose is good for the gander. You have to, again, that's the equality. Well, how come so and so el blanquito can have a block party and all this, but then we can't have ours and Hispanic events, you know. So in order to not hear his big voice, they made sure, you know, they wanted to keep it calm, they would approve his permits for it. But he had a lot of those he did a lot on the block, obviously. He had some on Washington. I remember down river road before it was what it is today. So yeah, mucho baile, a lot of and dancing. He would get orquestas from wherever and they would come in. And it was always obviously the, you know, the Hispanic community. And they did ask for donations, because again, it was to help the families that from the fires to help the organization. stay afloat because they (the city) were not helping. 36:27 / 38:31 Yvette: Like now, it's like when they say when it rains it pours. Like recently that in Union City they kept having one fire after the other after the other are suspicious on why? Those of us that lived during that time in Hoboken first thing that came to my mind is another Hoboken, that's what they're trying to do. And you know kind of died down a little bit but it was one after the other every week there was a fire in Union City. And you see it coming up the way it is right so. And if I didn't know, the back history of what happened here and lived through it I wouldn't like oh my god such a coincidence. There are no coincidences. Chris: Its cause and effect homie (laughs) its context. Do not live without context; It's a dangerous business. Yvette: To this day when I come back because obviously my sister lives here and you know, I have some friends and stuff but you know, I come down. But just coming down sometimes driving down and I’ll pass by obviously the places, you know that some of those memories will come back. And then you know, it's like I'm driving and you’ll see the blanquitos that just cross the street, not giving two flying shits about nothing. You know, and it's, you know, it's hard to say but it's like, you know, if you only knew the that desire, I want to just hit you in my car. Because you are you have this privilege, because there was bloodshed for it. You would not be walking these streets if it wasn't for the blood that was shed here. 45:09 / Chris: I’d like to see pictures if you have? Yvette: I look through her (mother) albums. She has a lot of pictures. One of them the album, the museum book. There's a picture of my grandfather and my my brother. My brothers, my grandfather and my mom, grandmother on her side, my mom's side sitting on the stoop across the street where from where they live that 161 14th Street used to be like something else obviously. So they live that 161 My grandfather had a cuchfrito right downstairs so he was the owner of the cuchifrito. And my mom took over the cuchifrito then that disappeared once he passed away (Delia’s husband Monroy) so it's just all this history back then everything. And for us everything was on 14th Street because we would you know we're up and down that's where my grandmother lived. That's when my mom came to live with my older brother there's with her and all this stuff so. Well, we have pictures of I think I think there's a picture that mommy has when we were sitting on that stoop. I remember and back then even young, I would be able to go up and up and down the street and the block and everybody watched out for you. You know, like, we were being raised by the, by the village. I couldn't go down to 10th Street park, a little older now, teenage years, and you know, I would smoke my cigarettes over there, escondida. And my mother would find out because there was no secrets. Yeah she, she went one day and I actually jumped out of the what do you call it, the gazebo. I saw her coming up the steps I'm like this, I'm like, uuu, and I jumped out and I ran home and I got my beating that day. Somebody, one of those viejas told her that I was there hanging out. I was young, I was really young. I shouldn't have been doing that anyway but whatever it was back then. It's like now I tell my daughter you don't know what we, we, we drank from a hose, we, our pool was the pompa from the, from the corner, when we put a sprinkler on. And that's where you know, close to block. Nobody gave a shit that back then and that's where we we did our you know, we had our fun and we survived you know kick the can playing and all this stuff and so it was those fun times and you would like you know playing like that back then. She, my daughter came to me once said oh no we were playing this new game called manhunt. I'm like, I started laughing and laughing and laughing and I sat back I said listen my child manhunt is older than me, and I played it back in the day and we now you have a fear of going into hiding wherever you have to like very, back then we went into people's friggin houses that we didn't even know. We're playing manhunt! Okay, go hide under the behind the sofa what up because back then it's like people wherever and you were protected. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Christopher López Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Yvette Ramos. Yvette is the fourth daughter of Carmen Figueroa. In the Negron-Figueroa family, Felix Negron was the first person to migrate to Hoboken from Bayamon, Puerto Rico in 1959. He moved to 1219 Willow Ave and was later joined by his wife, Isabel, and their daughter Carmen Negron. Their migration came as a result of Carmen’s pregnancy of her first born son, Wilfredo Figueroa and the lack of job opportunities on the island. Before becoming pregnant, Carmen was an au pair to a Puerto Rican family on the island that paid little money and treated her poorly. Her father, Felix, was responsible for the family’s move to the United States in search of better opportunities. In Hoboken he established a business as a cuchifrito restaurant and candy store. After his passing his daughter Carmen would take over the business. The Candy Store, as it was called, was located at 161 14th Street and ran successfully from 1966 to 1997. Felix as well lived in the building and Carmen and her children lived across the street at 116 14th Street where she raised five of her six children, Antonio, Carmen, Nilda, Yvette, and Mariyln. Wilfredo, the eldest, was raised by his grandparents above the candy store. This came as a result of having to leave him in their care as she was only 17 when she had him. Four children, Wildredo, Antonio, Carmen, and Nilda share a father, Domingo Figueroa, who left the family early on as he could not financially support them. Carmen’s fourth child, Yvette, is the daughter of the prominent Puerto Rican civil rights activist Juan Garcia who established the organization CUNA, Citizens United for New Action in Hoboken. Yvette, and Carmen’s other children, were introduced to activism at a young age due to their relationship with Juan. They participated in tenants rights demonstrations, and helped people in the community with translations for court appearances. Marylin, Carmen’s youngest child, was fathered by Jorge Monroy, an Ecuadorian migrant who spent forty years married to Carmen and who most of the children consider their father. The Negron/Figueroa family were a part of a burgeoning Puerto Rican community in Hoboken between the 1950’s and 1980’s which was ultimately devastated by violent displacement and an arson epidemic due to gentrification. Carmen Negron was the last of her family that remained living in Hoboken. She passed this year, 2024 in July. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Yvette Ramos, Oral history interview transcription. Subject The topic of the resource Interviews Puerto Ricans--New Jersey Oral history Description An account of the resource A transcription of the oral history interview conducted with Yvette Ramos. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Christopher López. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource Interview conducted on Friday, December 22, 2023. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource 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. Note that the written permission of the copyright owners and/or other rights holders (such as publicity and/or privacy rights) is required for distribution, reproduction, or other use of protected items beyond that allowed by fair use or other statutory exemptions. Responsibility for making an independent legal assessment of an item and securing any necessary permissions ultimately rests with persons desiring to use the item. Relation A related resource [LINK TO Negron-Figueroa Family TRANSCRIPT] Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Oral history (transcription) Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1950s through 1980s https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/86056/archive/files/e8637be6954580bea3ac41215a21ba1b.pdf?Expires=1774483200&Signature=Jll13LabUVxuDYFEHt95O-Cm1zp9rILi7GWYlniO8WmMW3bEs2rI9e5bj-umSEoW2svvAU%7EEpN5fTymFebAvd%7E1TXjtweAIM48VNCpUNGcMU1UtmBiJLxeRM%7E4gIAk5ziMba%7EZGk5JscFJ-FteqW0LSOfpAUW1XBgV7e45d638J7AzJ3jF1kit0RLYEEhSIZm-D7z00nMu7ljVs44YvjW-qv6%7EudvNDFyw1HBUMuTGk3xUzO%7EP8l8E1dKDceFb69b0wZRocDwe7AvUGhUvUpI-UDcJvZ8VLiViXO-8CarWcniLS35U7YbyqsBXETfDg6kH4ch3eQVi%7EnvBN7av0RRA__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM ce7286046f7930dba7ae0c49e4169dbf PDF Text Text Plaza de Bayamon, Puerto Rico, Carmen “Delia” Negron with her first born son, Wilfredo in 1959 just before migrating to Hoboken. �Domingo Figueroa in Bayamon, Puerto Rico 1958 just before migrating to Hoboken. �Carmen and Domingo Figueroa, with their second born son, Tony, at a baptism in Hoboken in 1961. �The Negon family in Hoboken,1968. �From left to right; Carmen Delia Negron(mother), Isabel Negron(Carmen’s mother), Felix Negron(Carmen’s father), Wilfredo Figueroa(Carmen’s first born), Antonio Figueroa(Carmen’s second born) at their family home at 161 14th Street in Hoboken. The family lived there from 1959 to 1983. When migrating to Hoboken Carmen’s parents first lived at 1219 Willow Ave. �161 14th Street between Garden and Bloomfield. Felix’s Cuchifrito. The family also lived in the building. The business was started in 1966 by Carmen’s father, Felix Negron, pictured here. �Carmen “Delia” Negron on front of her family’s Cuchifrito restaurant in Hoboken in 1966. �Felix Negron (right) with his neighbor, Henry (middle) owner of the adjacent italian deli to Felix’s cuchifrito 1966. �Tony, Nelly, Chicky, Carmen. 1964 �Domingo Figueroa, (father to Nelly, Chicky, Tony, and Willie) and Ita Medina (Domingo’s half sister who was a famous dancer from Puerto Rico. circa 1964-65 �Nelly, Tony, Willie, Chicky on 14th Street in Hoboken. �Nelly, Bibi, Chicky, and Tony in from of the Yellow Flats where they lived at 60-12 Street 1972. They were reallocated from the building by Applied Housing due to the buildings rehab. The family never returned to the building. �Wilfredo Figueroa 12th birthday party in Hoboken. 1971. �Willy, Bibi, Nelly, and Chicky in 1965 on 14th Street near Grand. �Jorge Monroy and Carmen Negron married in 1977. They operated the Candy Store on 109 14th Street together for 12 years. They have one child together, Marilyn Monroy. �Marilyn Monroy in her family’s bodgea, Delia’s Grocery & Candy in 1988, The Candy store was located on 109 14th street in Hoboken. �The New York City skyline as seen from Hoboken. From the Negron Family photo archive. �Puerto Rican Parade in Hoboken in the late 1960’s. From the Negron Family photo archive. �Nida “Chicky” Negron in the candy store in 1984. �Nilda “Chicky” Figueroa participating in a local beauty pageant representing Hoboken in 1980 were she pagented as “La India Taina”. �Wilfredo Figueroa during his time in the army. �Carmen and Jorge at the Monte Verde bar in 1977. �(pictured right) Chicky, Bibi, and Nelly, on the roof of of their building at 116 14th street in 1974. This roof was the girls main hangout when they were kids. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Oral Histories by Christopher Lopez Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Negron-Figueroa Family, Photos. Subject The topic of the resource Interviews Puerto Ricans--New Jersey Oral history Description An account of the resource A collection of photographs from the Negron-Figueroa family. Each photo includes a short description based on personal details of the photo's subject(s). Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Christopher López. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource Photograph collection was created in 2024. Photographs span 1958-1984. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource 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. Note that the written permission of the copyright owners and/or other rights holders (such as publicity and/or privacy rights) is required for distribution, reproduction, or other use of protected items beyond that allowed by fair use or other statutory exemptions. Responsibility for making an independent legal assessment of an item and securing any necessary permissions ultimately rests with persons desiring to use the item. Relation A related resource See "Yvette Ramos, Oral history transcription.," https://puertoricanexperienceinhoboken.omeka.net/items/show/17 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Still Image Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1950s through 1980s 14th street Bayamon bodega business Delia's Grocery and Candy Hoboken Negron family Negron-Figuera family Puerto Rican Puerto Rican owned business Puerto Rican Parade Puerto Rico Willow Avenue https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/86056/archive/files/5c3645e8cda915068d7f102e1ce9846a.pdf?Expires=1774483200&Signature=vR4H0grCg8zqbdZTa16fXUwl0nmKu0bY0ko4lsxiaKiYtLfBcxu7vY36P07U5TNutKXWNEBay8oGNLsDNuQ3giDkltZQBT%7EzyKGpLOPZ%7EwZlGUKNPgnbqakU88AS5LGnCJRlUdYizdrjIKcmvBd0TjcRlZGQS7yxqfQZ1Dwp7kMbZ7gUVYcVvNtxvli2zPkclVzmwK3%7Ep59tHFKaTZT%7EZoGFgCRZt6JFfeyxbr3BUpfPceCkDmi2fJ3MRp%7EEfWWBEkAfcRuMFglSJxdjK8aGr7rEyQHODMgrVmOqP8mIKSj82feWtqEs7cKnOj9lhP5DlXU28rCiE%7EjkP3VrBc0EKw__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 003d2e7a563f4eddc0a7a61da498e2f7 PDF Text Text Nilda “Chicky” Figueroa and Carmen “Nelly” Figueroa Excerpts from interviews conducted on January, 4, 2024, January 20, 2024, and May 4, 2024 Topics Discussed: ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● The gentrification of the city due to the arson fires and manipulation of Puerto Ricans being bought out of their apartments Personal experience with manipulative eviction tactics Puerto Rican business ownership Reflections on The Fires experienced through the play, Yuppies Invade My Home At Dinnertime Deaths in the family Migration Protests in Hoboken CUNA a Puerto Rican led activist group Juan Garcia the creator of CUNA Recreation and Sports Prejudism The Pinter Hotel fire Chicky: I can tell you that my mom told me story’s about before, years before, they decided they were going to do what they did. Because they already had it in their plans in Hoboken it was called model city. And this one insider that was, you know, acquaintance with my mom told my mom, I think he's a realtor. You know, you should purchase property because this and this is gonna happen. It's in the plans. But you know, for some reason, my mom didn't do that. But you know, the man was right. But what we didn't know. All those arsons are like, if you're in there and you die you die. You know, and that's how it went down. And the thing is that no one did anything about it. Everyone looked the other way. Capiello, everybody, the cops, you name it. You know, it was a free for all this is gonna happen and nobody's gonna prosecute anybody. Chicky: Did you see the play (Yuppies Invade My Home at Dinnertime)? From the professor, where my sister Yvette works? I went to that play. It was the last day of the last show. I held all my tears back. I don't know if you saw the play. I don't know how you felt? But I was holding it for dear life. My sister cried, she couldn't help it. I had to turn my face away just not to look at her. And it's sad because we still love Hoboken. My mom's still in Hoboken. Chicky: My mom, (Delia Negron) she's a warrior. She's 81 years old, and she still thinks she can hit you with her baston (cane) if she has to. Yeah, she's like that. We lived on 116 14th Street. A couple of years before things started to happen, there was a realtor that went by and tried to bamboozle my mom out of there, like kind of forcing her out. And I got into conversation, I said, excuse me, what you're saying right now is illegal. You can't force my mom out of here. This �was years before this happened(the fires). And she's not leaving. And if you want we could take it to court, and he looks at me, he goes, Oh, you're feisty, and you know, a lot. And I go, Yeah, because back then, I don't know, Bibi (Yvette) mentioned to my sister that her dad, her biological dad (Juan Garcia) had an organization called CUNA. So he was for the people, for the Hispanics in general, not necessarily Puerto Ricans. But there were a lot of Puerto Ricans back in the day in Hoboken. Because, you know, there was a lot of injustice to the people. So he read up a lot of laws, not that he was a lawyer, but he always made sure that the people were taken care of and that others could not be bamboozled into doing something they didn't want or illegally evicting them or trying to do anything that was against the law. So he taught me a lot when I was young and he used to have me go with certain adults at the time that did not speak English, so I would help them. I would translate for them. I was young, but you know, I didn't care. I wanted to do this. Going to court, helping them out and doing what I had to do. Long story short, this realtor, I told him, No, you can't do this. My mom's not leaving. So he actually offered me a job at the realty place because the receptionist that was there had given labor, and, you know, they needed somebody to take over. So I said, Okay, so I took her summer job there. It was just for the summer. And the guy couldn't do anything with my mom, because I told him you can't. We'll take you to court. You can't do this. And that was years before everything started to happen. He was a skinny dude and worked for Severino Realty. Chicky: I took the job for the summer, then the girl came back and I left. And then things escalated. When all this started, I want to say it was 70 something. Things started happening. It escalated up to a little bit after 1980, but not as much but during the 70’s and 80s. That's when all hell broke loose. It was bad. It was really bad. I remember, I didn't see that fire. For some reason but I can recall hearing from my mom about the one on 11th and Willow was pretty bad. Right on the corner. The one that stuck in my memory (Pinter Hotel). And I know my sister too, because we were right across the street. My mom had that candy store across the street. Chicky: Yeah, that was my grandma and my grandfather had a Cuchrito(typical Puerto Rican foods) on 161 14th Street. When you get in towards that corner, there's like a bar there or something. I don't know. It was always dark. The building right before that. The second one was 161. My grandmother lived there for years with my brother who passed away. When they came from Puerto Rico they lived, I think on Willow. They moved to that building on 161. They were on the second floor and they were there until she died. My grandfather died. And my brother 49 had an asthma attack. His heart couldn't take it and he passed away there too. Chicky: I was there(Pinter Hotel arson fire in 1982). Yeah, my mom witnessed the fire. We all did. It was so traumatic, that my mom was outside screaming and screaming hysterically because the people were throwing themselves out the window or burning to death. Yeah, it was really that bad. And then there was a family on the first floor. I don't know what country they were from. It could have been Haiti. They were Moreno pero no eran Moreno Americano. And �she had little kids. Her husband was working the night shift. And people were screaming to throw your kids down, throw your kids out. She was scared to do it. She finally did it. Then she threw herself out the window. They caught her because it was the first floor and they brought her to my mom's candy store. Her and her kids. And when her husband came, he came running into the store. He was going crazy. I told him, Please believe it okay, she's in the store. And he ran into the store and saw his family. Chicky: My mom during that time, opened the store because she knew the firemen. It was cold, it was a cold day. And people were just going in and out. And then people needed refuge. My mom opened the store and yo no se a que hora de la madrugada (I dont know whatever time in early morning) that, that happened, I just know it was way before five in the morning. And I remember one girl that I know I didn't really know her but I think Bebe (Yvette) maybe knew her better. Because she was younger. She was more like my sister's age. Even though I knew this girl. She was sort of tomboyish and she jumped out from the top floor. She broke her legs but she survived. I never saw her after that. But she survived. Her sister did not. Her, the baby, they died out the window. And that was tragic. I mean, you could see her half her whole body sticking out. That was bad. Yeah, it was hard. Chicky: But when you hear rumors, right, you're supposed to investigate and look into that person. Nobody did that. You know what I mean? Nobody did it. People got away with murder. Chicky: I remember going on my 10 speed bike with my, I want to say with my brother, not the oldest that passed away, the other one, going into downtown to First Street to where headquarters was and watching the riot. Because my father, her dad (Yvette), which is my stepdad, got together with Black Panthers in Hoboken and started a riot. He got arrested and my mother got arrested, and the cops were hitting them. I remember this thing, Jibaro Si, Yanqui No, Pa'rriba, Pa’bajo, Los Yanquis Pal’Carajo (Country Men Yes, Yankees No, Up and Down, The Yankees Go To Hell) I remember saying that young. I remember going to First Street and seeing the commotion, because I knew something was happening. (Juan Garcia the leader of CUNA, Chicky’s stepfather) he was, you know, a strong Puerto Rican. He didn't take shit from nobody. He helped a lot of people. And when I became older, after the riots, that's when I learned how to go to the court and how to help the people. Whatever he told me to do, I would do. They had counselors if they needed counselors. (CUNA) that was on Ninth and Willow. On 9th and Willow there's like a little statue there a man or something in that area. There's like a bar or something in there right next to it. It was like a little office space. And back there. That's what where used to be at. We used to hang out there after school. So there was really nothing much to do in Hoboken other than there was a recreational place on I want to say 13th and Willow. But I went there when I was like really young, there was this old American lady that would teach us how to sew and do crocheting. And then as I got a little older it was there CUNA. Then we formed like a softball league for the girls. And my friends because you know, they were not scared of the ball, they would play softball and we would play against others. I would not play I would just sit and cheer for them because I was scared of the ball. Yeah, I was �like, oh, no, that balls not gonna hit me. The team was called Las Tainas. I think I have pictures of our colors, purple and then it had Las Tainas written on them. And then I think it had our horoscope sign somewhere on there. So I still get it still stay in touch with two of the girls. One is in. Not so far from here. And the other one is in Puerto Rico. But yeah, they would play. And it wasn't just a bunch of Puerto Rican girls, there was maybe one or two white girls that would also play with us. You know the thing is, we were not prejudiced. That's why I tell my friends,I say when I was growing up, I really didn't feel prejudice. Maybe because I didn't look for it. I was young. And I wasn't into that, I was just into hanging out and having fun. I didn't feel any type of prejudice towards me. But as an adult thinking back on high school, I do know there was prejudice, especially with a counselor from high school, it was a man. He did it to me, he did it to my brother, I remember how struggling I was already in 11th grade, already half a year into the 11th grade. I wasn't feeling part of being there. I don't know. I can't describe it. I just felt older. And I felt like they were a bunch of kids and just don't want to be here. So I went up to him. So he could counsel me and he said, Yeah, you know, I think the best thing you should do is to quit, you know, just leave and go, go to vocational school. I think that's what he told me because that's exactly what I did. After half a year being in the 11th grade. And the same thing happened to my brother (Wilfredo). My brother went to him my brother's older that’s the one that passed away. My brother had the same issue. And that's the advice he gave him. He never really gave the Hispanics or the minorities good advice. But we didn't know any better. You know, this was a white man. Yeah, exactly. But then as I got older, you learn, and you start to think about it. But you know, this man could have, counseled me to say, look, you only have half a year just, you know, do this or whatever. No, he did the same thing to my brother. When he left school, he joined the army. And he finished high school there, he finished and he graduated. And he did the four years in the army, and then he came back home. And then he got the job over by the post office. And he worked and then he passed away. Chicky: There was this lady that lived on 159 14 Street. That building the people that were there, took the money (took buyouts), whatever they offered them so they could leave their place. This one lady didn't want to. It was, una senora, Puerto Rican, una senora bajita(small) staured she had two twin boys. They were already a little older. I want to say they're now my age. I would assume because I remember them being little like me. Because she was the last one and she did not want to leave. They waited for this lady to go food shopping, went in and burned her apartment down. And did they ever do anything about it? No. Chicky: My mom when she had the baby, her last child (Marilyn), she got a heart attack because in the building where we lived on 116 The Super that lived in that building, she did not give us heat while my mom was in the hospital. So our windows were frozen. When my mom came out of the hospital, the baby was only five pounds something ounces. My mom went up to the fifth floor, recien parida(recently pregnant), and knocked on the door and told her off. She said you have my kids freezing and that you better put the heat on because my daughter is a newborn. If anything happens to this newborn, I'm going to come up and kill you. You better put that heat on. So that same night my mom got a heart attack. We rushed her to the hospital she �was foaming at the mouth and everything. She survived thank you Jesus. Yeah, it was God. Even then what these fucking landlords used to do and the Super’s was crazy. Chicky: I'm sure the people that you spoke to that were in the fires and survived they have to be traumatized. That's not something you can get over. I wasn't in the fire but I witnessed it. I can't sleep without clothes, I have to make sure that I have una batica (top) with pants because if I have to run I have to run. I cannot sleep, because that's in my mind. I'm like, oh no that's not going to happen to me. And where I'm at right now, I'm always looking out the window and if I throw myself will I get hurt? It’s bad and I wasn't even in the fire. So I can't even imagine those people that you interviewed how they feel. You think you could be next. You know what I'm saying? What if? And every time I hear like the fire department, I constantly hear them now where I'm living. I hear them all the time and I hate it. I don't like hearing it, it kind of freaks me out. I cannot sleep not prepared. I have to be prepared. Chicky: The people that live there now because this was all done for the yuppies. That's why the professor titled that play Yuppies Invade My Home at Dinnertime. So there's a lot of resentment from Hispanics towards the yuppies because of the way they act and the privilege that they had. All the things that were built for them. I don't really care because I grew up happy in Hoboken. I love Hoboken. I grew up in the old Hoboken. It was so neighborly, everybody said hi to everybody. We knew everybody it was a large Hispanic community. A lot of them were moved to places like PA. And I actually sometimes, well most of the time, I’ll go to church on Willow, because they give the Spanish mass and the older ladies that are there and I know them well. My mom knows them well too. And I feel that small community because that's all there is. Chicky: In Hoboken they have pageants. I don't know if you know about that? So let me tell you something, the organizer was this lady named Minín. She was Puerto Rican short statured. Minín was a nickname I'm assuming but that's how we all knew her by. She organized a pageant and I participated and I dressed as Una India Taina. Yeah, because I had to represent Puerto Rico even though I was born and raised here. Thank God my mom raised us with Puerto Rican roots, even though we're not from Puerto Rico. My mom’s from Baymon and she came here at the age of sixteen. But, you know, our family's Puerto Rican, and you learn the Puerto Rican way. We have the Puerto Rican attitude. We do everything just like Puerto Ricans. I've always been proud, especially when I participated in that pageant to represent La Taina. �Nilda Figueroa and Carmen Figueroa. This interview was conducted on January, 20, 2024 Chicky: (Juan Garcia) He taught me how to fight for my rights, and to be smart about the law and to not get bullied. Everybody has rights. So he taught me to be like that. Chicky: If none of this would have happened, obviously Hoboken would have changed slowly. But the people that grew up in a town were people that you cared about, and you are friends with, and you go to school with.. And then for this to happen, and boom, 80% of them are no longer there because either they died or they were shipped off to PA because that's the only affordable place to go to. Chicky: (In regards to her brother Antonio) Because of him I learned how to box. I had to fight to defend myself and then so he wanted my siblings, my sisters and I to know how to defend ourselves. My sister (Nelly) knows how to box but I've always been the fighter. Chicky: (In regards to the Pinter Hotel arson fire) Nelly says she remembers a guy running out with a red canister. Nelly: I didn't know that it was him at the time, I actually didn't know him. But I saw a guy running out with a red canister and I told the cops that. They asked us questions, and we answered what we saw. The fire was so big. We were across the street. Esquina a esquina (corner to corner) it was so big the flames. You could feel the heat like if you were right in front of the building. (Carmen and her husband Jorge) they went down and opened the store to bring coffee and butter rolls for everybody. Chicky: To bring for the families. The ones who could get out. Nelly: (speaking about her mom Carmen) She gave things for them to eat. She took down blankets. We did everything. Shoes, clothes, things of ours we took it to the store. Chicky: I remember when the lady's husband came he was crazy screaming looking for his wife. We had to calm him down. She's in the store with the kids. She's okay. She's okay. Nelly: Yo creo también que él también quería, he wanted to kill himself to be with his family. That's how sad it was. �This interview was conducted on May, 4, 2024 Chicky: (In regards to the culpability of Hoboken city officials in relation to the arson fires) They all know the truth. It's up to them to either come out and say, Yeah, we never did anything. Nelly: Yeah, she's right. Chicky: You know? Or now come and say, Yeah, we always knew. Chicky: (In regards to her childhood friend, name undisclosed, who also lived through the fires and the gentrification of the city) She is battling her own health issues, right but she also mentioned twice to me, and I don't want to get into details with her and also I don't want to change the way she feels. But I even thought about it yesterday, because that bothers me. She doesn't want to bring up the fires because it was very painful for her. And in my mind, I'm thinking the best healing medicine is to open up and talk. Don't hold anything. Because sometimes I think that when you hold things, you get sick. And I always said, I know, obviously, we're all gonna die but it's not going to be because I stood still, it's not going to be because I didn't say what I felt. I am, this is me. And I'm going to tell you how I'm feeling. Tell you what I remember. If I don't like it, I'm gonna tell you too. I'm never gonna hold anything back. I don't think anybody should. I think people should just talk good or bad. If it's gonna make you cry, it's gonna make you cry. If it's gonna make you laugh it's gonna make you laugh. But never hold things back. And that's probably a lot of people. Then at a certain age, they don't want to let go of things from the past, or they don't want to relive the past. And you should because it's part of you. Letting go is part of healing as well. Let's say somebody did something to me when I was younger, because you know, a lot of people go through shit. The way I am, my personality is, I'm not going to allow that person if they're dead or alive, to have control over me, even though it's long gone. How do you do that? Forgiving, right? Letting go and letting God take care of business. That's how I think and that's why I say a lot of people that don't say the truth about history or something that deeply touched them or is deeply hurting them can't express how they feel now because you're bringing that up. You need to because otherwise you're going to make yourself sick if you don't. I believe that a hundred percent. Let it go. And don't be afraid. People are like, hush, hush, but who are you protecting? � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Oral Histories by Christopher Lopez Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Chicky: I can tell you that my mom told me story’s about before, years before, they decided they were going to do what they did. Because they already had it in their plans in Hoboken it was called model city. And this one insider that was, you know, acquaintance with my mom told my mom, I think he's a realtor. You know, you should purchase property because this and this is gonna happen. It's in the plans. But you know, for some reason, my mom didn't do that. But you know, the man was right. But what we didn't know. All those arsons are like, if you're in there and you die you die. You know, and that's how it went down. And the thing is that no one did anything about it. Everyone looked the other way. Capiello, everybody, the cops, you name it. You know, it was a free for all this is gonna happen and nobody's gonna prosecute anybody. Chicky: Did you see the play (Yuppies Invade My Home at Dinnertime)? From the professor, where my sister Yvette works? I went to that play. It was the last day of the last show. I held all my tears back. I don't know if you saw the play. I don't know how you felt? But I was holding it for dear life. My sister cried, she couldn't help it. I had to turn my face away just not to look at her. And it's sad because we still love Hoboken. My mom's still in Hoboken. Chicky: My mom, (Delia Negron) she's a warrior. She's 81 years old, and she still thinks she can hit you with her baston (cane) if she has to. Yeah, she's like that. We lived on 116 14th Street. A couple of years before things started to happen, there was a realtor that went by and tried to bamboozle my mom out of there, like kind of forcing her out. And I got into conversation, I said, excuse me, what you're saying right now is illegal. You can't force my mom out of here. This was years before this happened(the fires). And she's not leaving. And if you want we could take it to court, and he looks at me, he goes, Oh, you're feisty, and you know, a lot. And I go, Yeah, because back then, I don't know, Bibi (Yvette) mentioned to my sister that her dad, her biological dad (Juan Garcia) had an organization called CUNA. So he was for the people, for the Hispanics in general, not necessarily Puerto Ricans. But there were a lot of Puerto Ricans back in the day in Hoboken. Because, you know, there was a lot of injustice to the people. So he read up a lot of laws, not that he was a lawyer, but he always made sure that the people were taken care of and that others could not be bamboozled into doing something they didn't want or illegally evicting them or trying to do anything that was against the law. So he taught me a lot when I was young and he used to have me go with certain adults at the time that did not speak English, so I would help them. I would translate for them. I was young, but you know, I didn't care. I wanted to do this. Going to court, helping them out and doing what I had to do. Long story short, this realtor, I told him, No, you can't do this. My mom's not leaving. So he actually offered me a job at the realty place because the receptionist that was there had given labor, and, you know, they needed somebody to take over. So I said, Okay, so I took her summer job there. It was just for the summer. And the guy couldn't do anything with my mom, because I told him you can't. We'll take you to court. You can't do this. And that was years before everything started to happen. He was a skinny dude and worked for Severino Realty. Chicky: I took the job for the summer, then the girl came back and I left. And then things escalated. When all this started, I want to say it was 70 something. Things started happening. It escalated up to a little bit after 1980, but not as much but during the 70’s and 80s. That's when all hell broke loose. It was bad. It was really bad. I remember, I didn't see that fire. For some reason but I can recall hearing from my mom about the one on 11th and Willow was pretty bad. Right on the corner. The one that stuck in my memory (Pinter Hotel). And I know my sister too, because we were right across the street. My mom had that candy store across the street. Chicky: Yeah, that was my grandma and my grandfather had a Cuchrito(typical Puerto Rican foods) on 161 14th Street. When you get in towards that corner, there's like a bar there or something. I don't know. It was always dark. The building right before that. The second one was 161. My grandmother lived there for years with my brother who passed away. When they came from Puerto Rico they lived, I think on Willow. They moved to that building on 161. They were on the second floor and they were there until she died. My grandfather died. And my brother 49 had an asthma attack. His heart couldn't take it and he passed away there too. Chicky: I was there(Pinter Hotel arson fire in 1982). Yeah, my mom witnessed the fire. We all did. It was so traumatic, that my mom was outside screaming and screaming hysterically because the people were throwing themselves out the window or burning to death. Yeah, it was really that bad. And then there was a family on the first floor. I don't know what country they were from. It could have been Haiti. They were Moreno pero no eran Moreno Americano. And she had little kids. Her husband was working the night shift. And people were screaming to throw your kids down, throw your kids out. She was scared to do it. She finally did it. Then she threw herself out the window. They caught her because it was the first floor and they brought her to my mom's candy store. Her and her kids. And when her husband came, he came running into the store. He was going crazy. I told him, Please believe it okay, she's in the store. And he ran into the store and saw his family. Chicky: My mom during that time, opened the store because she knew the firemen. It was cold, it was a cold day. And people were just going in and out. And then people needed refuge. My mom opened the store and yo no se a que hora de la madrugada (I dont know whatever time in early morning) that, that happened, I just know it was way before five in the morning. And I remember one girl that I know I didn't really know her but I think Bebe (Yvette) maybe knew her better. Because she was younger. She was more like my sister's age. Even though I knew this girl. She was sort of tomboyish and she jumped out from the top floor. She broke her legs but she survived. I never saw her after that. But she survived. Her sister did not. Her, the baby, they died out the window. And that was tragic. I mean, you could see her half her whole body sticking out. That was bad. Yeah, it was hard. Chicky: But when you hear rumors, right, you're supposed to investigate and look into that person. Nobody did that. You know what I mean? Nobody did it. People got away with murder. Chicky: I remember going on my 10 speed bike with my, I want to say with my brother, not the oldest that passed away, the other one, going into downtown to First Street to where headquarters was and watching the riot. Because my father, her dad (Yvette), which is my stepdad, got together with Black Panthers in Hoboken and started a riot. He got arrested and my mother got arrested, and the cops were hitting them. I remember this thing, Jibaro Si, Yanqui No, Pa'rriba, Pa’bajo, Los Yanquis Pal’Carajo (Country Men Yes, Yankees No, Up and Down, The Yankees Go To Hell) I remember saying that young. I remember going to First Street and seeing the commotion, because I knew something was happening. (Juan Garcia the leader of CUNA, Chicky’s stepfather) he was, you know, a strong Puerto Rican. He didn't take shit from nobody. He helped a lot of people. And when I became older, after the riots, that's when I learned how to go to the court and how to help the people. Whatever he told me to do, I would do. They had counselors if they needed counselors. (CUNA) that was on Ninth and Willow. On 9th and Willow there's like a little statue there a man or something in that area. There's like a bar or something in there right next to it. It was like a little office space. And back there. That's what where used to be at. We used to hang out there after school. So there was really nothing much to do in Hoboken other than there was a recreational place on I want to say 13th and Willow. But I went there when I was like really young, there was this old American lady that would teach us how to sew and do crocheting. And then as I got a little older it was there CUNA. Then we formed like a softball league for the girls. And my friends because you know, they were not scared of the ball, they would play softball and we would play against others. I would not play I would just sit and cheer for them because I was scared of the ball. Yeah, I was like, oh, no, that balls not gonna hit me. The team was called Las Tainas. I think I have pictures of our colors, purple and then it had Las Tainas written on them. And then I think it had our horoscope sign somewhere on there. So I still get it still stay in touch with two of the girls. One is in. Not so far from here. And the other one is in Puerto Rico. But yeah, they would play. And it wasn't just a bunch of Puerto Rican girls, there was maybe one or two white girls that would also play with us. You know the thing is, we were not prejudiced. That's why I tell my friends,I say when I was growing up, I really didn't feel prejudice. Maybe because I didn't look for it. I was young. And I wasn't into that, I was just into hanging out and having fun. I didn't feel any type of prejudice towards me. But as an adult thinking back on high school, I do know there was prejudice, especially with a counselor from high school, it was a man. He did it to me, he did it to my brother, I remember how struggling I was already in 11th grade, already half a year into the 11th grade. I wasn't feeling part of being there. I don't know. I can't describe it. I just felt older. And I felt like they were a bunch of kids and just don't want to be here. So I went up to him. So he could counsel me and he said, Yeah, you know, I think the best thing you should do is to quit, you know, just leave and go, go to vocational school. I think that's what he told me because that's exactly what I did. After half a year being in the 11th grade. And the same thing happened to my brother (Wilfredo). My brother went to him my brother's older that’s the one that passed away. My brother had the same issue. And that's the advice he gave him. He never really gave the Hispanics or the minorities good advice. But we didn't know any better. You know, this was a white man. Yeah, exactly. But then as I got older, you learn, and you start to think about it. But you know, this man could have, counseled me to say, look, you only have half a year just, you know, do this or whatever. No, he did the same thing to my brother. When he left school, he joined the army. And he finished high school there, he finished and he graduated. And he did the four years in the army, and then he came back home. And then he got the job over by the post office. And he worked and then he passed away. Chicky: There was this lady that lived on 159 14 Street. That building the people that were there, took the money (took buyouts), whatever they offered them so they could leave their place. This one lady didn't want to. It was, una senora, Puerto Rican, una senora bajita(small) staured she had two twin boys. They were already a little older. I want to say they're now my age. I would assume because I remember them being little like me. Because she was the last one and she did not want to leave. They waited for this lady to go food shopping, went in and burned her apartment down. And did they ever do anything about it? No. Chicky: My mom when she had the baby, her last child (Marilyn), she got a heart attack because in the building where we lived on 116 The Super that lived in that building, she did not give us heat while my mom was in the hospital. So our windows were frozen. When my mom came out of the hospital, the baby was only five pounds something ounces. My mom went up to the fifth floor, recien parida(recently pregnant), and knocked on the door and told her off. She said you have my kids freezing and that you better put the heat on because my daughter is a newborn. If anything happens to this newborn, I'm going to come up and kill you. You better put that heat on. So that same night my mom got a heart attack. We rushed her to the hospital she was foaming at the mouth and everything. She survived thank you Jesus. Yeah, it was God. Even then what these fucking landlords used to do and the Super’s was crazy. Chicky: I'm sure the people that you spoke to that were in the fires and survived they have to be traumatized. That's not something you can get over. I wasn't in the fire but I witnessed it. I can't sleep without clothes, I have to make sure that I have una batica (top) with pants because if I have to run I have to run. I cannot sleep, because that's in my mind. I'm like, oh no that's not going to happen to me. And where I'm at right now, I'm always looking out the window and if I throw myself will I get hurt? It’s bad and I wasn't even in the fire. So I can't even imagine those people that you interviewed how they feel. You think you could be next. You know what I'm saying? What if? And every time I hear like the fire department, I constantly hear them now where I'm living. I hear them all the time and I hate it. I don't like hearing it, it kind of freaks me out. I cannot sleep not prepared. I have to be prepared. Chicky: The people that live there now because this was all done for the yuppies. That's why the professor titled that play Yuppies Invade My Home at Dinnertime. So there's a lot of resentment from Hispanics towards the yuppies because of the way they act and the privilege that they had. All the things that were built for them. I don't really care because I grew up happy in Hoboken. I love Hoboken. I grew up in the old Hoboken. It was so neighborly, everybody said hi to everybody. We knew everybody it was a large Hispanic community. A lot of them were moved to places like PA. And I actually sometimes, well most of the time, I’ll go to church on Willow, because they give the Spanish mass and the older ladies that are there and I know them well. My mom knows them well too. And I feel that small community because that's all there is. Chicky: In Hoboken they have pageants. I don't know if you know about that? So let me tell you something, the organizer was this lady named Minín. She was Puerto Rican short statured. Minín was a nickname I'm assuming but that's how we all knew her by. She organized a pageant and I participated and I dressed as Una India Taina. Yeah, because I had to represent Puerto Rico even though I was born and raised here. Thank God my mom raised us with Puerto Rican roots, even though we're not from Puerto Rico. My mom’s from Baymon and she came here at the age of sixteen. But, you know, our family's Puerto Rican, and you learn the Puerto Rican way. We have the Puerto Rican attitude. We do everything just like Puerto Ricans. I've always been proud, especially when I participated in that pageant to represent La Taina. Nilda Figueroa and Carmen Figueroa. This interview was conducted on January, 20, 2024 Chicky: (Juan Garcia) He taught me how to fight for my rights, and to be smart about the law and to not get bullied. Everybody has rights. So he taught me to be like that. Chicky: If none of this would have happened, obviously Hoboken would have changed slowly. But the people that grew up in a town were people that you cared about, and you are friends with, and you go to school with.. And then for this to happen, and boom, 80% of them are no longer there because either they died or they were shipped off to PA because that's the only affordable place to go to. Chicky: (In regards to her brother Antonio) Because of him I learned how to box. I had to fight to defend myself and then so he wanted my siblings, my sisters and I to know how to defend ourselves. My sister (Nelly) knows how to box but I've always been the fighter. Chicky: (In regards to the Pinter Hotel arson fire) Nelly says she remembers a guy running out with a red canister. Nelly: I didn't know that it was him at the time, I actually didn't know him. But I saw a guy running out with a red canister and I told the cops that. They asked us questions, and we answered what we saw. The fire was so big. We were across the street. Esquina a esquina (corner to corner) it was so big the flames. You could feel the heat like if you were right in front of the building. (Carmen and her husband Jorge) they went down and opened the store to bring coffee and butter rolls for everybody. Chicky: To bring for the families. The ones who could get out. Nelly: (speaking about her mom Carmen) She gave things for them to eat. She took down blankets. We did everything. Shoes, clothes, things of ours we took it to the store. Chicky: I remember when the lady's husband came he was crazy screaming looking for his wife. We had to calm him down. She's in the store with the kids. She's okay. She's okay. Nelly: Yo creo también que él también quería, he wanted to kill himself to be with his family. That's how sad it was. This interview was conducted on May, 4, 2024 Chicky: (In regards to the culpability of Hoboken city officials in relation to the arson fires) They all know the truth. It's up to them to either come out and say, Yeah, we never did anything. Nelly: Yeah, she's right. Chicky: You know? Or now come and say, Yeah, we always knew. Chicky: (In regards to her childhood friend, name undisclosed, who also lived through the fires and the gentrification of the city) She is battling her own health issues, right but she also mentioned twice to me, and I don't want to get into details with her and also I don't want to change the way she feels. But I even thought about it yesterday, because that bothers me. She doesn't want to bring up the fires because it was very painful for her. And in my mind, I'm thinking the best healing medicine is to open up and talk. Don't hold anything. Because sometimes I think that when you hold things, you get sick. And I always said, I know, obviously, we're all gonna die but it's not going to be because I stood still, it's not going to be because I didn't say what I felt. I am, this is me. And I'm going to tell you how I'm feeling. Tell you what I remember. If I don't like it, I'm gonna tell you too. I'm never gonna hold anything back. I don't think anybody should. I think people should just talk good or bad. If it's gonna make you cry, it's gonna make you cry. If it's gonna make you laugh it's gonna make you laugh. But never hold things back. And that's probably a lot of people. Then at a certain age, they don't want to let go of things from the past, or they don't want to relive the past. And you should because it's part of you. Letting go is part of healing as well. Let's say somebody did something to me when I was younger, because you know, a lot of people go through shit. The way I am, my personality is, I'm not going to allow that person if they're dead or alive, to have control over me, even though it's long gone. How do you do that? Forgiving, right? Letting go and letting God take care of business. That's how I think and that's why I say a lot of people that don't say the truth about history or something that deeply touched them or is deeply hurting them can't express how they feel now because you're bringing that up. You need to because otherwise you're going to make yourself sick if you don't. I believe that a hundred percent. Let it go. And don't be afraid. People are like, hush, hush, but who are you protecting? Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Christopher López Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Nilda “Chicky” Figueroa and Carmen “Nelly” Figueroa. Chicky and Nelly are the daughters of Carmen Negron. Felix Negron was the first person to migrate to Hoboken from Bayamon, Puerto Rico in 1959. He moved to 1219 Willow Ave and was later joined by his wife, Isabel, and their daughter Carmen Negron. Their migration came as a result of Carmen’s pregnancy of her first born son, Wilfredo Figueroa and the lack of job opportunities on the island. Before becoming pregnant, Carmen was an au pair to a Puerto Rican family on the island that paid little money and treated her poorly. Her father, Felix, was responsible for the family’s move to the United States in search of better opportunities. In Hoboken he established a business as a cuchifrito restaurant and candy store. After his passing his daughter Carmen would take over the business. The Candy Store, as it was called, was located at 161 14th Street and ran successfully from 1966 to 1997. Felix as well lived in the building and Carmen and her children lived across the street at 116 14th Street where she raised five of her six children, Antonio, Carmen, Nilda, Yvette, and Mariyln. Wilfredo, the eldest, was raised by his grandparents above the candy store. This came as a result of having to leave him in their care as she was only 17 when she had him. Four children, Wildredo, Antonio, Carmen, and Nilda share a father, Domingo Figueroa, who left the family early on as he could not financially support them. Carmen’s fourth child, Yvette, is the daughter of the prominent Puerto Rican civil rights activist Juan Garcia who established the organization CUNA, Citizens United for New Action in Hoboken. Yvette, and Carmen’s other children, were introduced to activism at a young age due to their relationship with Juan. They participated in tenants rights demonstrations, and helped people in the community with translations for court appearances. Marylin, Carmen’s youngest child, was fathered by Jorge Monroy, an Ecuadorian migrant who spent forty years married to Carmen and who most of the children consider their father. The Negron/Figueroa family were a part of a burgeoning Puerto Rican community in Hoboken between the 1950’s and 1980’s which was ultimately devastated by violent displacement and an arson epidemic due to gentrification. Carmen Negron was the last of her family that remained living in Hoboken. She passed this year, 2024 in July. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Negron-Figueroa Family, Oral history interview transcription. Subject The topic of the resource Interviews Puerto Ricans--New Jersey Oral history Description An account of the resource A transcription of the oral history interview conducted with Nilda “Chicky” Figueroa and Carmen “Nelly” Figueroa. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Christopher López. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource Interview conducted on January, 4, 2024, January 20, 2024, and May 4, 2024. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource 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. Note that the written permission of the copyright owners and/or other rights holders (such as publicity and/or privacy rights) is required for distribution, reproduction, or other use of protected items beyond that allowed by fair use or other statutory exemptions. Responsibility for making an independent legal assessment of an item and securing any necessary permissions ultimately rests with persons desiring to use the item. Relation A related resource See "Negron-Figueroa Family, Photos.," https://puertoricanexperienceinhoboken.omeka.net/items/show/18 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Oral history (transcription) Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1950s through 1980s 14th street Bayamon bodega business community organizing Hoboken migration Negron family Negron-Figuera family Pinter Hotel political activism protests Puerto Rican Puerto Rican owned business Puerto Rico tenant organizing https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/86056/archive/files/f6b5229cbbcbaa8103a9aec9087a3009.pdf?Expires=1774483200&Signature=PcWA4cpig-FW6it9Wun7nCqdII1qlBFo4B8j3gEuF93kdNN77s3cxYMRrApw3aHqZhgQFCgiIzrN-QiTv2JoH5SQOxFVAL-WDlstXwkvnVlmW3KCgpUSgEOU3L%7EPd-01hAZkYEkVg8u6wIp4YleQ49%7EUcwwTk4BHtDTwf-XTnFf2rw4p1IhX4ck8OOnBp9Pm7vcZgtpfl0QMm5WIfRp%7EqhkkYEOxvdgXR8R48-S6wrh-7vLCjAH4Uw4mj3o0mbw0Ljm4FpnIC4YxUBUYxTZzjsgaApSNlsMzDelqsYJ32Pj09cN61wopGzHkyEJUkBbO-6mjc8-Ao%7EqxjjI78KT2gw__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM b7815fcdd708ca7558f8891d67ce75a2 PDF Text Text Ray Guzman This conversation was recorded on Friday, March 5th, 2021. SUMMARY KEYWORDS Art practice, business ownership, witnessing arson fires, depicting fire through painting, craftsmanship, migrating from The Bronx to New Jersey, crime, Boricuas as minorities, exoticism, Hoboken as a burgeoning art scene in the 80’s, fire capital of the world, fear based discrimination, displacement, loss of essential businesses and services, homogenized, assimilation, Pinter Hotel, fire, displacement, governmental neglect, abandonment, grief, closure, drug addiction as coping mechanisms, gentrification, trauma, ptsd, depression, anxiety, panic attacks, resilience, perseverance, loneliness, solidarity, hope. Chris: Explain to me a little bit about your practice. Ray: It's enamel paint on aluminum. Aluminum background and enamel paint. It's really because of my career. I've been in the sign business since 1986. Hoboken Sign. And then we started brainwave studio in 93. But I started my life as a fine artist, and I spent 10 years pursuing that career. Chris: Beginning in 86? Ray: Prior to that, yeah, so for 10 years prior to that, 76 on to 86 I was practicing fine art. I was a young man at the time but I already had a two year old, Noah. And so at that point in my life, and with my wife, I realized I have to do something serious. I almost got into a big, famous gallery and he made me bring all my paintings there, and they were all life sized paintings. They're all gigantic. 10 feet, 12 feet, 16 foot paintings. I mean I had giant paintings. And I brought them to his gallery, and he loved it, but he decided he's gonna, he said, I want to give you another year and see how you mature. I said, I got a two year old. I can't do that (laughs). And I don't come from, you know, family where they can support me and let me put in another year. And, you know, I got to do it right? So that's what I did. I went back, started my business, the sign business. So I continued to paint as a fine artist through the years. We moved to Hoboken, and while here is when we noticed, we started to see the fires in Hoboken that were happening, and it was a very terrible time. I started to do some paintings of the experience. So here I am doing my artwork, and I'm doing the sign business. And the sign business in those days, there was no sign company in Hoboken for 14 years. The last guy retired 14 years ago, the opportunity was there. And I started my business with some friends who invested in me, and I paid them back their money double in six months. That's how good business was. And then I was very fortunate, because Hoboken didn't know what a good sign person was, and I was terrible (laughs). So, but they needed a sign guy, and I started to learn, but I also knew commercial art. So luckily, I didn't know the sign business. I was trained as a fine artist and a �commercial artist, so I just said, I'll make my signs you know, commercially. So they came out beautiful. We had a lot of good things through the years. I got better and better and we started to win awards, international awards, in the sign business. And then we traveled all over the country and all over the world in the sign business. And so these paintings that you see here, this is all done with sign paint. So I'm sitting there lettering signs on metal with enamel paint and I said, Oh, I like the way this flows. Let me try painting. So that's how that came about. Chris: What is sign paint? Ray: Well, the sign paint is enamel paint, so it's made for exterior and it's very vibrant in color. It's juicy, delicious, and glossy. And it's very hard to paint these kinds of paintings with sign paint, because if sign paint is called one shot, you only do it one shot, put one letter and with the lettering brush and a mall stick, and you do it in one shot. So this paint dries relatively fast. So you can't really blend like oil paint. I work in oil, I work in acrylics. I work in watercolor. So I know how to work all the mediums. Chris: Where were you coming from before Hoboken? Ray: We moved to Jersey City when I was 11 years old, from the Bronx. Chris: Whereabouts in the Bronx? Ray: South Bronx, where all the Boricuas come from. I grew up on 134th Street and Forest Avenue. Jackson Street Station. That's where I grew up. And then we moved out of there in 66 and I was very upset, because I loved my school, but it was getting bad. Used to be a great neighborhood and then it was getting bad. And so when we moved to Jersey City, the heights I was 11. My grandmother died when I was 11. So we moved there at 11, and we lived first near Journal Square, for, I don't know, three or four months. Hated it there. Then my mother found an apartment in The Heights, and it was like the country. I said, Oh, this is great, you know. Chris: How so? Ray: First off all the buildings got little, right, the heights. And then it was very safe. Even though there was crime it wasn't the crime we knew in the Bronx, so it's like, Are you kidding? Chris: Like this is paradise (both laugh) Ray: So I got a bike, and I got a paper route, and I was making friends. We had a lot of friends. I went to number eight school. And it was a great neighborhood to grow up in. Me and another kid, John Ortez, were the only Boricuas there. Chris: What were the other demographics? Ray: Oh, it was Italian, Irish, German. Hudson County, old Hudson County. �Chris: I hear stories of classic battles between Italians and Puerto Ricans. Did you ever experienced this? Ray: I was very lucky. When I was there, I had fights, but you had fights because people were jealous of me. The girls loved me because I was Boricua right, oh this guy's exotic. I've never had a Puerto Rican girlfriend. There were, there were no Puerto Rican girls up there. Just John’s sister and she was too little. Chris: So you the cute Puerto Rican guy around the way. Ray: That's it! But I have to say the kids were great. None of them were racist. They weren't. I had a couple of fights. So there was bully shit, you know, but it was never, you know, we hate spics. There was none of that. I never experienced anything like that in Jersey City. When I went to Dickinson High School. That was, that's a big school. Dickinson is in the heights. So if you take Palisade all the way to the end, you see that big building. When you take the tunnel, the Holland Tunnel, and you go up the road. That big building on the left, that's Dickinson High School. Population over 3000 students. 1500 kids graduate a year. I had a great art teacher there, and that was, I have to say, it was a tough experience because the public school system wasn't ready for advanced thinking. So I had a very good education in the Bronx. I had a very good education in the heights public school. My reading skills were really extraordinarily high. My math was not, you know, anything, but I was already an artist. So I was going to art school. My uncle would send me to art school in New York City when I was a freshman in high school. I would go to art school once a week, and I ended up going to art school till I graduated Dickinson. So by the time I graduated, I got a full scholarship to the School of Visual Arts. I'm still an alumni. I try and participate, but I love that school I had a great time, and I have to say that Dickinson was preparing you for college, but they look at college like this. You were going to be an accountant, scientist, bookkeeper, you know, you're not. You know anything about art, right? So when I got the scholarship to SVA that didn't mean anything to them. That was like getting an award from the Lions Club for 200 bucks. That was four years free college is what I got. So I ended up at SVA, and I got into all my other colleges too. At that time, I went to Philadelphia College of Art. Chris: Well then how is it that you got to Hoboken? Ray: I lived in an apartment on Ogden in Congress and a good friend of mine lived on the first floor with his family, his mother, his father, his grandfather and grandmother, and his name was Julio Fernandez, I don't know if you know Julio. He's the lead guitarist for Spyro Gyro. But he was going to music school in those days, and we were going to art school. My wife and me weren't married yet. So he's sitting in the front, playing the guitar, and I say, Hey, Julio, how you doing? He's Cuban Puerto Rican. I had a lot of Cuban friends in Jersey City through the years. So Julio says, I'm playing this Friday night. You want to come down and hear us? I said, Where? He said, in Hoboken at Senore’s lounge. So we went Friday night, got on the bus, ended up on Washington Street, which used to be (Senore’s Lounge), but is now CVS, that �used to be a ShopRite back in the 70s. So we came to Washington Street, we got off the bus, and the first person I meet, a guy sees me and Renata getting off the bus. And we're looking for Senore’s Lounge. Where is this place? He goes, What are you guys looking for? And we're like, we're here, we’ve come here to hear our friends play at the bar tonight. He goes, Oh, Julio Fernandez? I go, Yeah. He goes, follow me. I own the bar. He says, Hi, I'm Frank Raya. I don't know if you know Pupy? A lot of people have issues with him. I think he's a great man, a great person. People are jealous, he built himself up. He's his own man. Chris: What does he do? Ray: He was a kid like us in Hoboken and he worked in the, they called it the rag trade. The rag trade is really fabrics. He had a factory that would sell clothes and stuff. He had a vision for himself of someday being an important person in Hoboken, and he did become an important person. He ran for mayor several times, didn't make it. He's very well connected, he's very smart, and he said, one day I'm gonna buy this building that we're in right now because he went to grammar school here. This used to be a public school (Number 8 school). So he ended up buying the building one day. It went for auction. Him and his partner bought it and they developed it. He lives upstairs. And he's been good to me and my wife. When my wife was dying of cancer. We were kicked out of our other place on Jefferson Street because the woman said, We don't want cancer in our midst, so get out of here. Yeah, really talk about cruelty. My wife was freaking out, and I was like, oh my god, so I'm walking down the street. And I see Pupy, Frank, down the street. He goes, Why you look so bummed out? I tell him, Renata got cancer, and we're being kicked out of over there. He goes, you've been kicked out, why? I tell him the story. He says, you know what? He says, you're moving with me. You come in here. He says, talk to my partner we'll get you a space. You'll come here. Well, I said, really, my wife came and saw the space, and she died in 2009 and we were here in 2004. That's how long we've been in this space. So for me Pupy’s, a great man, good guy. And his wife, his kids are all good people. So that's my story. And then Pupy said when we're walking to the bar, he says, you guys should move to Hoboken. This is the art scene. It’s where it's happening. The music scene, everything is going on. Ray: So the following month, we moved to Hoboken, we moved in, and we didn't know it was the fire capital of the world. Chris: Well, it just happened to be a coincidence right? Ray: Yeah, it was a coincidence because other people were seeing greed and money and they didn't care if people were dying. So that was, that was pathetic. That was scary, scary shit. And then when you start to see fire trucks and buildings burnt down. So what the hell is this, this is like the Bronx man. What's going on? Chris: When the Bronx was burning. �Ray: Oh, for God's sakes, you know, they were burning people out of there too. But, you know, it wasn’t a community. It has five boroughs, so it's a big city. Hoboken is a mile by a mile. Chris: Did Hoboken change quickly before your eyes? Or is it something that happened gradually and slowly? Ray: Well, we were part of the change. We came to Hoboken though we didn't know it. We only came here because other artists and musicians were here, and they were all our age. So we go to the bar. Is a cool place to hang out. Everybody's your age, everybody's hanging out. And, you know, we're having a good time. We're going to see here this group. And then there's art scenes going on. I had put on a couple of art shows behind the Elysian Fields, Elysian bar, Elysian Cafe, and we had a lot of cool things going on, and then the fire breaks out here, then we know, okay, then another fire broke out over there, and then before you know it, people died and it's like, what's going on here? It was simultaneous. So the change was in the air. And we realized, wow, you know, people were saying, Oh, you're paying the $500 a month rent. That's a lot of money for rent in those days. And we said, well, this is, you know, pretty good rent but we're working and so, you know, we weren't, I mean we were poor, we were kids, but we weren't poor like other people here, who, you know, had factory jobs and had a lot of kids, rents, and they had to pay a lot of money and and so we weren't like that. We were young, and these people were older, and they were stuck, but the changes were coming fast. There was a lot of construction going on too. A lot of construction happening, and everything is happening at the same time. To this very day I tell people, people say, Oh, you’ve seen a lot of changes. I say every six months, there's a big change in Hoboken. Chris: What would you say the biggest changes were? Ray: It's like I said, every six months you notice another change. So the bodegas are gone, the grocery stores are gone. The fruit markets are gone. Now it's a nail salon, dry cleaner, bars and restaurants. Anything that helps you to live better. As far as you know, food shopping now you gotta, you have ShopRite and you have Kings, but you don't have any markets or any fresh vegetables, right, anywhere. That you can walk to, except the big supermarket Acne, ShopRite. All the Koreans are gone. They closed down. They had the best fruits and vegetables. We used to have Indian markets on Hudson Street. You can buy all the spices you want. You walk in there with bags from burlap, from all over the world, spices and curries, because we had a big Indian population. So we had the Boricuas, we had the Indians, it was very mixed. And so that's the other thing you missed. So it's very homogenized now. Everything is, you know, one flavor fits all. And so the changes have been big and hard. And I'm lucky, Sissy and I are lucky that we're still here. We still have a lot of good friends here, and a lot of old school Hoboken. They're still holding on. Chris: That distinction is so often made right? That you got the oldtimers and then you got… Ray: I belong to St Francis church. And that's a parish that's down on second and Jefferson. But I like that church. It's a little church, and it's a great church, and they have an Italian mass, and I �would go to some of the Italian masses. I have a lot of Italian friends. The Holy Name society. So there's a lot of Italian guys there. I grew up in Hudson County, so you got to become Italian in some way. Cooking food, friends, you grew up in this environment, and you so you become. You become part of it. Chris: So you've done paintings that involve fires. Why? Ray: Some of them. And I have to say that, because I've always wanted to be a fireman. I always wanted to be a fireman, and so I got close with Billy Bergen, a great man who passed away, I think, now, probably two years now. And Billy was the one who would tell us, because I was growing up in Hoboken, right, came here my 20s, and he goes, Yeah, yeah, Ray come on, get in the fire department. Let's go we need guys like you. So he'd come to my shop on Jefferson Street, and my wife was was working with me, and he walked in because I was lettering the fire trucks, I was gold pinstriping the captain's car. And I love doing the gold leaf on the on the fire trucks and on the on the captain's car. And so I got a lot of, you know, work from the firehouse, and I always wanted to be a fireman. Come on, let's go. So my wife says, no, no, no, that's not gonna happen. I said, why? She goes, No, it's too dangerous. We got a two year my son was probably, probably three or four by that time, and she goes, and with all these fires that are going on here, you know. Billy said, Well, it's dangerous, but you get trained for this. Its not like you go in, we send you in with a hose, put on this helmet, and go in there and do something. We get training, there's always training. So a lot of my friends became firemen. Chris: What's the inspiration here? Ray: Fireman at the door. Noah's got the original painting, and it's very powerful. And again, I was dramatic and trying to picture myself doing that job. And seeing my friends doing that job. I mean, you know, they worked all the time, and I would go around. I started in Jersey City too. I would go around with my camera and follow the fire trucks. So I took some pictures of fire trucks and firemen doing their thing out there. And so this is all from my imagination. He’s wearing a mask of oxygen. He's got a crow hook and the flames are in the background. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Oral Histories by Christopher Lopez Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Chris: Explain to me a little bit about your practice. Ray: It's enamel paint on aluminum. Aluminum background and enamel paint. It's really because of my career. I've been in the sign business since 1986. Hoboken Sign. And then we started brainwave studio in 93. But I started my life as a fine artist, and I spent 10 years pursuing that career. Chris: Beginning in 86? Ray: Prior to that, yeah, so for 10 years prior to that, 76 on to 86 I was practicing fine art. I was a young man at the time but I already had a two year old, Noah. And so at that point in my life, and with my wife, I realized I have to do something serious. I almost got into a big, famous gallery and he made me bring all my paintings there, and they were all life sized paintings. They're all gigantic. 10 feet, 12 feet, 16 foot paintings. I mean I had giant paintings. And I brought them to his gallery, and he loved it, but he decided he's gonna, he said, I want to give you another year and see how you mature. I said, I got a two year old. I can't do that (laughs). And I don't come from, you know, family where they can support me and let me put in another year. And, you know, I got to do it right? So that's what I did. I went back, started my business, the sign business. So I continued to paint as a fine artist through the years. We moved to Hoboken, and while here is when we noticed, we started to see the fires in Hoboken that were happening, and it was a very terrible time. I started to do some paintings of the experience. So here I am doing my artwork, and I'm doing the sign business. And the sign business in those days, there was no sign company in Hoboken for 14 years. The last guy retired 14 years ago, the opportunity was there. And I started my business with some friends who invested in me, and I paid them back their money double in six months. That's how good business was. And then I was very fortunate, because Hoboken didn't know what a good sign person was, and I was terrible (laughs). So, but they needed a sign guy, and I started to learn, but I also knew commercial art. So luckily, I didn't know the sign business. I was trained as a fine artist and a commercial artist, so I just said, I'll make my signs you know, commercially. So they came out beautiful. We had a lot of good things through the years. I got better and better and we started to win awards, international awards, in the sign business. And then we traveled all over the country and all over the world in the sign business. And so these paintings that you see here, this is all done with sign paint. So I'm sitting there lettering signs on metal with enamel paint and I said, Oh, I like the way this flows. Let me try painting. So that's how that came about. Chris: What is sign paint? Ray: Well, the sign paint is enamel paint, so it's made for exterior and it's very vibrant in color. It's juicy, delicious, and glossy. And it's very hard to paint these kinds of paintings with sign paint, because if sign paint is called one shot, you only do it one shot, put one letter and with the lettering brush and a mall stick, and you do it in one shot. So this paint dries relatively fast. So you can't really blend like oil paint. I work in oil, I work in acrylics. I work in watercolor. So I know how to work all the mediums. Chris: Where were you coming from before Hoboken? Ray: We moved to Jersey City when I was 11 years old, from the Bronx. Chris: Whereabouts in the Bronx? Ray: South Bronx, where all the Boricuas come from. I grew up on 134th Street and Forest Avenue. Jackson Street Station. That's where I grew up. And then we moved out of there in 66 and I was very upset, because I loved my school, but it was getting bad. Used to be a great neighborhood and then it was getting bad. And so when we moved to Jersey City, the heights I was 11. My grandmother died when I was 11. So we moved there at 11, and we lived first near Journal Square, for, I don't know, three or four months. Hated it there. Then my mother found an apartment in The Heights, and it was like the country. I said, Oh, this is great, you know. Chris: How so? Ray: First off all the buildings got little, right, the heights. And then it was very safe. Even though there was crime it wasn't the crime we knew in the Bronx, so it's like, Are you kidding? Chris: Like this is paradise (both laugh) Ray: So I got a bike, and I got a paper route, and I was making friends. We had a lot of friends. I went to number eight school. And it was a great neighborhood to grow up in. Me and another kid, John Ortez, were the only Boricuas there. Chris: What were the other demographics? Ray: Oh, it was Italian, Irish, German. Hudson County, old Hudson County. Chris: I hear stories of classic battles between Italians and Puerto Ricans. Did you ever experienced this? Ray: I was very lucky. When I was there, I had fights, but you had fights because people were jealous of me. The girls loved me because I was Boricua right, oh this guy's exotic. I've never had a Puerto Rican girlfriend. There were, there were no Puerto Rican girls up there. Just John’s sister and she was too little. Chris: So you the cute Puerto Rican guy around the way. Ray: That's it! But I have to say the kids were great. None of them were racist. They weren't. I had a couple of fights. So there was bully shit, you know, but it was never, you know, we hate spics. There was none of that. I never experienced anything like that in Jersey City. When I went to Dickinson High School. That was, that's a big school. Dickinson is in the heights. So if you take Palisade all the way to the end, you see that big building. When you take the tunnel, the Holland Tunnel, and you go up the road. That big building on the left, that's Dickinson High School. Population over 3000 students. 1500 kids graduate a year. I had a great art teacher there, and that was, I have to say, it was a tough experience because the public school system wasn't ready for advanced thinking. So I had a very good education in the Bronx. I had a very good education in the heights public school. My reading skills were really extraordinarily high. My math was not, you know, anything, but I was already an artist. So I was going to art school. My uncle would send me to art school in New York City when I was a freshman in high school. I would go to art school once a week, and I ended up going to art school till I graduated Dickinson. So by the time I graduated, I got a full scholarship to the School of Visual Arts. I'm still an alumni. I try and participate, but I love that school I had a great time, and I have to say that Dickinson was preparing you for college, but they look at college like this. You were going to be an accountant, scientist, bookkeeper, you know, you're not. You know anything about art, right? So when I got the scholarship to SVA that didn't mean anything to them. That was like getting an award from the Lions Club for 200 bucks. That was four years free college is what I got. So I ended up at SVA, and I got into all my other colleges too. At that time, I went to Philadelphia College of Art. Chris: Well then how is it that you got to Hoboken? Ray: I lived in an apartment on Ogden in Congress and a good friend of mine lived on the first floor with his family, his mother, his father, his grandfather and grandmother, and his name was Julio Fernandez, I don't know if you know Julio. He's the lead guitarist for Spyro Gyro. But he was going to music school in those days, and we were going to art school. My wife and me weren't married yet. So he's sitting in the front, playing the guitar, and I say, Hey, Julio, how you doing? He's Cuban Puerto Rican. I had a lot of Cuban friends in Jersey City through the years. So Julio says, I'm playing this Friday night. You want to come down and hear us? I said, Where? He said, in Hoboken at Senore’s lounge. So we went Friday night, got on the bus, ended up on Washington Street, which used to be (Senore’s Lounge), but is now CVS, that used to be a ShopRite back in the 70s. So we came to Washington Street, we got off the bus, and the first person I meet, a guy sees me and Renata getting off the bus. And we're looking for Senore’s Lounge. Where is this place? He goes, What are you guys looking for? And we're like, we're here, we’ve come here to hear our friends play at the bar tonight. He goes, Oh, Julio Fernandez? I go, Yeah. He goes, follow me. I own the bar. He says, Hi, I'm Frank Raya. I don't know if you know Pupy? A lot of people have issues with him. I think he's a great man, a great person. People are jealous, he built himself up. He's his own man. Chris: What does he do? Ray: He was a kid like us in Hoboken and he worked in the, they called it the rag trade. The rag trade is really fabrics. He had a factory that would sell clothes and stuff. He had a vision for himself of someday being an important person in Hoboken, and he did become an important person. He ran for mayor several times, didn't make it. He's very well connected, he's very smart, and he said, one day I'm gonna buy this building that we're in right now because he went to grammar school here. This used to be a public school (Number 8 school). So he ended up buying the building one day. It went for auction. Him and his partner bought it and they developed it. He lives upstairs. And he's been good to me and my wife. When my wife was dying of cancer. We were kicked out of our other place on Jefferson Street because the woman said, We don't want cancer in our midst, so get out of here. Yeah, really talk about cruelty. My wife was freaking out, and I was like, oh my god, so I'm walking down the street. And I see Pupy, Frank, down the street. He goes, Why you look so bummed out? I tell him, Renata got cancer, and we're being kicked out of over there. He goes, you've been kicked out, why? I tell him the story. He says, you know what? He says, you're moving with me. You come in here. He says, talk to my partner we'll get you a space. You'll come here. Well, I said, really, my wife came and saw the space, and she died in 2009 and we were here in 2004. That's how long we've been in this space. So for me Pupy’s, a great man, good guy. And his wife, his kids are all good people. So that's my story. And then Pupy said when we're walking to the bar, he says, you guys should move to Hoboken. This is the art scene. It’s where it's happening. The music scene, everything is going on. Ray: So the following month, we moved to Hoboken, we moved in, and we didn't know it was the fire capital of the world. Chris: Well, it just happened to be a coincidence right? Ray: Yeah, it was a coincidence because other people were seeing greed and money and they didn't care if people were dying. So that was, that was pathetic. That was scary, scary shit. And then when you start to see fire trucks and buildings burnt down. So what the hell is this, this is like the Bronx man. What's going on? Chris: When the Bronx was burning. Ray: Oh, for God's sakes, you know, they were burning people out of there too. But, you know, it wasn’t a community. It has five boroughs, so it's a big city. Hoboken is a mile by a mile. Chris: Did Hoboken change quickly before your eyes? Or is it something that happened gradually and slowly? Ray: Well, we were part of the change. We came to Hoboken though we didn't know it. We only came here because other artists and musicians were here, and they were all our age. So we go to the bar. Is a cool place to hang out. Everybody's your age, everybody's hanging out. And, you know, we're having a good time. We're going to see here this group. And then there's art scenes going on. I had put on a couple of art shows behind the Elysian Fields, Elysian bar, Elysian Cafe, and we had a lot of cool things going on, and then the fire breaks out here, then we know, okay, then another fire broke out over there, and then before you know it, people died and it's like, what's going on here? It was simultaneous. So the change was in the air. And we realized, wow, you know, people were saying, Oh, you're paying the $500 a month rent. That's a lot of money for rent in those days. And we said, well, this is, you know, pretty good rent but we're working and so, you know, we weren't, I mean we were poor, we were kids, but we weren't poor like other people here, who, you know, had factory jobs and had a lot of kids, rents, and they had to pay a lot of money and and so we weren't like that. We were young, and these people were older, and they were stuck, but the changes were coming fast. There was a lot of construction going on too. A lot of construction happening, and everything is happening at the same time. To this very day I tell people, people say, Oh, you’ve seen a lot of changes. I say every six months, there's a big change in Hoboken. Chris: What would you say the biggest changes were? Ray: It's like I said, every six months you notice another change. So the bodegas are gone, the grocery stores are gone. The fruit markets are gone. Now it's a nail salon, dry cleaner, bars and restaurants. Anything that helps you to live better. As far as you know, food shopping now you gotta, you have ShopRite and you have Kings, but you don't have any markets or any fresh vegetables, right, anywhere. That you can walk to, except the big supermarket Acne, ShopRite. All the Koreans are gone. They closed down. They had the best fruits and vegetables. We used to have Indian markets on Hudson Street. You can buy all the spices you want. You walk in there with bags from burlap, from all over the world, spices and curries, because we had a big Indian population. So we had the Boricuas, we had the Indians, it was very mixed. And so that's the other thing you missed. So it's very homogenized now. Everything is, you know, one flavor fits all. And so the changes have been big and hard. And I'm lucky, Sissy and I are lucky that we're still here. We still have a lot of good friends here, and a lot of old school Hoboken. They're still holding on. Chris: That distinction is so often made right? That you got the oldtimers and then you got… Ray: I belong to St Francis church. And that's a parish that's down on second and Jefferson. But I like that church. It's a little church, and it's a great church, and they have an Italian mass, and I would go to some of the Italian masses. I have a lot of Italian friends. The Holy Name society. So there's a lot of Italian guys there. I grew up in Hudson County, so you got to become Italian in some way. Cooking food, friends, you grew up in this environment, and you so you become. You become part of it. Chris: So you've done paintings that involve fires. Why? Ray: Some of them. And I have to say that, because I've always wanted to be a fireman. I always wanted to be a fireman, and so I got close with Billy Bergen, a great man who passed away, I think, now, probably two years now. And Billy was the one who would tell us, because I was growing up in Hoboken, right, came here my 20s, and he goes, Yeah, yeah, Ray come on, get in the fire department. Let's go we need guys like you. So he'd come to my shop on Jefferson Street, and my wife was was working with me, and he walked in because I was lettering the fire trucks, I was gold pinstriping the captain's car. And I love doing the gold leaf on the on the fire trucks and on the on the captain's car. And so I got a lot of, you know, work from the firehouse, and I always wanted to be a fireman. Come on, let's go. So my wife says, no, no, no, that's not gonna happen. I said, why? She goes, No, it's too dangerous. We got a two year my son was probably, probably three or four by that time, and she goes, and with all these fires that are going on here, you know. Billy said, Well, it's dangerous, but you get trained for this. Its not like you go in, we send you in with a hose, put on this helmet, and go in there and do something. We get training, there's always training. So a lot of my friends became firemen. Chris: What's the inspiration here? Ray: Fireman at the door. Noah's got the original painting, and it's very powerful. And again, I was dramatic and trying to picture myself doing that job. And seeing my friends doing that job. I mean, you know, they worked all the time, and I would go around. I started in Jersey City too. I would go around with my camera and follow the fire trucks. So I took some pictures of fire trucks and firemen doing their thing out there. And so this is all from my imagination. He’s wearing a mask of oxygen. He's got a crow hook and the flames are in the background. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Christopher López Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Ray Guzman, a celebrated Hoboken artist, was born in 1954 in Manhattan, New York City. His grandmother, Henrietta Townsend-Rodriguez, migrated to NYC in the great migration from Puerto Rico in the 1940’s. Ray was raised in the South Bronx by his parents mother, Rachel, and father, Raymond Guzman Sr before moving to Jersey City when he was eleven years old. Ray’s mother worked as an off-set printer and father was a gifted cabinet maker and musician. Ray moved to Hoboken with his wife, Renata, at the height of the city’s gentrification. Influenced by the period and his desire to be a fireman, Ray depicted many fires in his paintings throughout the years. Over the course of more than forty years in Hoboken, Ray became a master sign maker and owned and operated his sign business Hoboken Sign on 7th St. between Jefferson and Adams. Ray has received both regional and international acclaim for his paintings and is noted as one of the most famed muralists in Hoboken having recently in 2023, created the mural for his friend, and greatly revered Puerto Rican citizen, Tom Oliveri, to commemorate his life of service to the city at a park named after him on 13th and Willow. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Ray Guzman, Oral history interview transcription. Subject The topic of the resource Interviews Puerto Ricans--New Jersey Oral history Description An account of the resource A transcription of the oral history interview conducted with Ray Guzman. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Christopher López. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource Interview conducted on Friday, March 5, 2021. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource 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. Note that the written permission of the copyright owners and/or other rights holders (such as publicity and/or privacy rights) is required for distribution, reproduction, or other use of protected items beyond that allowed by fair use or other statutory exemptions. Responsibility for making an independent legal assessment of an item and securing any necessary permissions ultimately rests with persons desiring to use the item. Relation A related resource See "Frank Guzman, Oral history interview transcription.," https://puertoricanexperienceinhoboken.omeka.net/items/show/15 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Oral history (transcription) Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1960s through 1980s art artist fires gentrification Hoboken Hoboken art scene Hoboken fires oral history painter Pinter Hotel Puerto Rican Puerto Rican owned business Puerto Rico