Cobblestone streets can still be found in urban areas throughout Essex and Hudson Counties, but only a handful of New Jerseyans can say that they live along a real yellow brick road. Hoboken’s Castle Point Terrace, which stretches from 8th Street north to Elysian Park, is a relic from over a century ago because of the yellow bricks that make up this side street near the Stevens Institute of Technology campus.
However, this unique street is not in the condition that it once was. In fact, over the years, pavement has been added to cover some of the yellow bricks in order to make the roadway safer for drivers. Other parts of Castle Point Terrace appear to be cracked, a far cry from how the street appeared decades ago.
Now, the City of Hoboken is planning to move forward with a project that calls for making major changes to this historic corridor. The Castle Point Terrace Historic Rehabilitation Project has been established because of the yellow brick block’s “poor condition” and need for “complete reconstruction,” according to a public notice from mid-September. The project will consist of a conceptual design phase, a final design phase, and a construction management phase.
As part of City Hall’s efforts to reconstruct this street, a professional service contract has been awarded to a Red Bank, Monmouth County-based engineering services firm called ENGenuity Infrastructure, according to the notice. The $36,510 contract will expire in September 2019 and is in connection with the conceptual design phase of the project. City Hall hired the company following the issuance of a Request for Proposals because the firm “was determined to have the most advantageous proposal, price and other factors considered.”
Few other details have been revealed yet about the project.
In addition to the yellow bricks that drivers pass over on a daily basis, Castle Point Terrace is unique because of the types of houses that can be found on it. Despite Hoboken being among the densest cities in the country and mostly filled with apartments and condominiums stacked one atop the other, this block is lined with grand estates and picturesque houses. Some of the homes are among the most expensive residential properties in the city, while others are owned by Stevens and used for special interest housing and Greek life.
