Hypocritical rubbish.
For whom are the artists making art?
Are the artists great artists, or are they hacks?
Is hack art sufficient for Hoboken to lay claim to having an "art community"?
There is no critical mass of art appreciators and buyers in Hoboken.
Hoboken's new monied bourgeois elite are artless in the extreme.
Where are the curators?
Where are the art galleries?
Every serious gallery in Hoboken closes its doors after a short run.
The only non-vanity "gallery" in Hoboken is a frame shop.
Hoboken's bohemianism, always more myth than fact, is long gone.
There is no art movement in Hoboken.
There is no rundown pocket of Hoboken that can be claimed by artists.
A vital city supports art and artists.
Hoboken is not vital; Williamsburg in Brooklyn is vital.
The people who have colonized Hoboken are suburbanites.
The people who have colonized Hoboken have brought their suburban ethos with them.
Hoboken is no longer a real city; it is the easternmost suburb of the northern New Jersey suburbs.
Graffiti artists don't bother tagging Hoboken because there is no audience for the work.
There is no use pretending that Hoboken is something it is not.
The mayor is a good person, but in promulgating art she is being patronizing.

Hazel,
You characterize the 1970s-80s Hoboken arts scene as being vital.
A friendly challenge: name three visual artists from the Hoboken of the 1970s-80s who changed the course of art. Name one.
New York of that time: Haring, Basquiat, Scharf, Schnabel... On and on.
Hoboken: zero.
It's always been that way.
Hoboken has no "downtown," no critical mass of bohemian intellectualism.
The Mayor wants to "preserve" the arts in Hoboken?
What "art"?
Streets scenes done in an Impressionist manner?

Your "sorry...fame whore"... What is a "fame whore? I'm not familiar with the term. It sounds like an insult to yourself.

Re: the art coming out of NY in the 1970s-80s: on no evidence but plenty of paranoia, you made an assumption that I was saying the art was uniformly excellent. I didn't even imply it. I'm in agreement with you that much of it was second- and third-rate. The quality of the art wasn't the question at hand, however. The question was the vitality of the respective art communities. The latter includes curators, gallerists and people who buy art. Yes, buy art. Pay money for it. So that artists don't have to be bank tellers and waiters their entire lives. We know the names of Basquiat, et al, not because they were great, which I agree, is debatable, but because an art-and-money community existed in NY which empowered the artists. To this day, for better or worse, artists make work derivative of Basquiat. Isn't that a goal of a serious artist: to establish an art identity that makes art history and changes the conversati0n?

You stated that Hoboken's art community was vital in the 1970s and 80s. Tell me about it. Flesh out the story for me. Who were the artists? What became of them? What became of their art? What movements did they espouse?

The artists, the gallerists, the curators, the wealthy patrons of Hoboken's artists who made it possible for the artists to thrive: I want to hear all about it.

right on, Exit.

why is the mayor picking a special group to protect?

dawn has a knack for making lame statments like "the arts is what makes Hoboken a special place."

where to begin with that sentence? how much do we pay her speech writer?

imagine she's at the OLG debate for mayoral candidates in a few years. Bob Bowden asks them all to offer their view on what makes Hoboken a special place. would she really say "the arts" ?

even patty waiters would think of a better answer.

You ask, Why does the mayor talk about the arts in such a patronizing manner? I don't know. Because she's a non-artist? Because she never cut open a vein trying to say something new with her art? Never struggled to break through to something important? Because she thinks she's saying the nonsense she thinks people want to hear? I have no idea.

When it comes to art, Hoboken is living a lie. This is understandable because art played at a high level is a winner-take-all proposition, and one of the world's great art markets is just across the river, and it's taken all the important art and important money. That's how things go. Winner take all. But I don't appreciate the mayor of Hoboken perpetuating the lie that art is important to the city. It's an ornament for the purpose of investing an increasingly cold little place with some humanity and Impressionistic "charm." Montemarte Sur le Hudson.

Exit & Forward, I don't know where the hostility comes from. Most places recognize that art is part of a healthy community. The arts festivals are much better for Hoboken than say the St. Pats parade and I enjoy popping into places like the Rotating Gallery when I can.
An enhanced art program for the kids is just as important as an active sports program ( more so for kids whose talents lie off the field and need encouraging)
I met briefly met several artists working in the Leathers building, its getting used. I think it would be a shame to just let it crumble into the ground and be replaced by a residential box.
Just some things to think about.

David,
It's great that you like popping into the Rotating Gallery and that you're meeting artists who have space on Observer Highway. Now buy art. Then the Leather Building will stay filled with artists. Then I'll believe you truly care about art. As things stand, you're getting a free ride on the backs of artists.

Art for kids? Different subject, but sure, teach them.

The subject of my first letter was my opinion that the mayor was grandstanding when she spoke of importance of the arts to Hoboken. You haven't said anything that can counter my argument. Worse, you haven't spent a dime on art. In effect, you demonstrated how important art is to you. Important enough to have a brush with it, but not so much as to open your wallet. In that, you're a typical Hobokenite. The city doesn't buy art; it doesn't live and breathe art; art is an add-on in Hoboken. That was my point.

Almost all of the artists were pushed out long ago and there is nothing that has been done to demonstrate that there is any interest in protecting the few that are left living here - this is a press release, simply pr to put some seemingly positive spin on what is really being done. The mayor is proposing another redevelopment zone, when a huge swath of the city has already been declared redevelopment zones....all of which are exempt from zoning laws and taxes. So now we're gonna add one more - great. Redevelopment (even is you 'call' it rehabilitation - it's the same thing) is a developer scam. Developers get a tax breaks, developers get to add more density to our over-crowded neighborhoods and over-stressed infrastructure. They walk away with their profits and the citizens of Hoboken end up attacking each other when the taxes increase.

Indie, artists are the first to get in and the first to get pushed out. Old story. If politicians and developers find enlightened self-interest in declaring a neighborhood to be a landmark neighborhood, as happened in SoHo; when illegal dwelling in a certain area is declared to be legal for artists, with grandfathering (look up a guy named Tony Goldman, a developer who in the 70s bought 18 buildings in SoHo and filled them with artists; you'll weep), a semi-comatose neighborhood can transform itself from warehousing and manufacturing to mixed residential and commercial––all based on the fact that doctors want to live next door to artists.

Mayor Bloomberg can rightly make the claim that art is one of NY's most important economic engines; Mayor Zimmer should stay far away from making unwarranted claims for art as far as its impact on Hoboken.

Hoboken is cursed by being too small and by a dearth of cast-iron buildings. What can be done to save the existing buildings for artists should be done; but it will always be at the margins. At this point, there are no dense pockets of industrial buildings worth preserving as art enclaves.

Finally, Hoboken sits too close to one of the great art cities in the world. It's not necessary for Hoboken to be art-based.

wow - check out the Lane style attack....and not in support of all things Beth Mason. Amazing! "AreYouKiddingMe" certainly is no one that knows me personally, has no idea what I do for a living, nor has ever been in my home - yet posts about my personal financial viability and quality of living quarters. Interestingly, "areyoukiddingme" is a screen name that's appeared out of the blue - do we have a multiple name poster stalking about on behalf of some politician or other? Seems like all the threads and blogs in Hoboken no longer allow for discussion and idea sharing, but rather are ground zero for puke and nonsense. Redevelopment is certainly a topic that could and should be debated without spin, PR and personal attacks...

I have a problem with the mayor declaring that she will "promote the arts through the City website."

Does that mean promoting individual artists who happen to work here? To me, that translates as promoting individual businesses that sell a product here. And if that's the goal, then why not have the city website flog business people who sell pizza or greeting cards or real estate?

Monroe Arts Center is in bankrupcty and it looks as though the mayor wants us (the taxpayers whose businesses are not hawked on the city website) to bail it out because the word "arts" is in the title.

What happened to focusing on our 25% tax cut? I have yet to see a dime cut from my taxes, despite all the blather from the politicians running for office and their supporters.

My linked-in profile, eh? Very interesting who has "viewed my profile" on linked in recently. Wouldn't have guessed that this kind of vicious attack would come from you. Says a lot - says a lot about a few people.

yeah, uh-huh, sure. nice try - you tipped your hold card. Good night.