Hoboken Firsts

Please e-mail us if you have notable "Hoboken Firsts" you'd like to see added.

Baseball. On June 19, 1846 the first officially recorded, organized game of baseball was played on Hoboken's Elysian Fields. The New York Base Ball Club defeated the Knickerbockers 23-1. Learn more at HobokenBaseball.com. Read a June 8, 2001 New York Times article that chronicles the game's development before and after the famous Hoboken match. 

America's First Brewery. On February 5, 1663 Nicholas Varlett obtained from Peter Stuyvesant a patent for the first brewery in America, located on Castle Point.

Blimpie. The fast food restaurant Blimpie was started by students from Stevens Institute of Technology, with its first "sub base" on Hoboken's Washington Street.

Clock Towers. The first conversion of industrial space to residential use, a practice known today as adaptive reuse. Located at 300 Adams Street.

The first electrified train was driven by Thomas Edison from Hoboken's DL&W Terminal to Montclair, New Jersey.

Central Air. The first central air cooling system in the United States was housed in Hoboken's DL&W Terminal.

Wireless Phone. The first wireless phone, operable between Hoboken and Manhattan, was situated in Hoboken's DL&W Terminal.

Colonel John Stevens. The inventor of many significant firsts including the first steam ferry and the nation's first steam locomotive. Colonel Stevens also received the first American railroad charter and designed the "T" rail. Click here, and here, for more.

Hoboken Firsts 

(& other interesting Hoboken facts and legends) 

Submitted by Visitors to www.hobokenmuseum.org

Soft Ice Cream...according to a submission by Janet Tunick. Ms Tunick writes: 

I heard from my cousin, Norman Woods, of Jacksonville Florida. He said Schortmeier's Ice Cream Parlor was at 726 Washington Street. It was run by his mother, Catherine Agnes Woods, and all the ice cream was made on site by his father, Irving Leonard Woods.  He said the "soft ice cream" happened by mistake one time, when the ice cream maker failed resulting in a soft ice cream that became an instant hit that attracted people from all over the area. This probably occurred in the late 1930's, early 1940's.

Ice Cream Cone..."I read...that the ice cream cone was invented and patented in Hoboken." (Michael Bison)

Oreo Cookies...the first Oreo cookie was sold in Hoboken. (Dan Altilio)

Yacht Club...the first yacht club in America was situated in Hoboken (Dan Altilio) 

General Food's Maxwell House plant (9th St. - 12th St. and Hudson St.) (closed in the 80's) was at one time the largest coffee plant in the world. (Dan Altilio) 

Hoboken's Fugerson Propeller Works made the Titanic's propellers. (Dan Altilio)