The Neumann Leathers Tenants Association has been formed to protect, sustain and encourage the entrepreneurial, inventive and creative culture that exists at the Neumann Leather complex, which has played such an important historical role for the city of Hoboken, New Jersey for well over two decades.
Located on Observer Highway at the corner of Willow Avenue, we are a mixture of artists and artisans, craftspersons and professionals, and creative technology-based small businesses. We have joined together because we are concerned about the continued elimination of the industrial buildings that once were at the heart of Hoboken's industrial base and which now provide an economical support base for this creative community.
Wide-sweeping housing development has, over the last 25 years, brought either the demolition or conversion of historical industrial buildings, which were once a central part of the city's history for well over 100 years. One of the last few structures, the Neumann Leather complex, remains as a small island that supports Hoboken's tradition as a center for arts and industry.
Our interest, as Hoboken continues its over-development, is self-evident. We want to protect and preserve this important arts and entrepreneurial business complex, not just for ourselves, but for what Neumann provides for the city at large-a thriving creative community that drew developers to this city in the first place, yet who now, ironically, threaten to destroy the very identity that continues to make Hoboken so attractive. We also want to protect ourselves as a business community, as we provide unique and interesting jobs for residents of Hoboken and its immediate neighbors.
In recent decades Hoboken led the country in providing a variety of affordable housing projects aimed at preserving the ethnic and economic diversity of its population. In a similar way, we need to make it a goal to preserve the diversity of land uses that has formed our history. We ask the City of Hoboken to take positive steps to join us in this vision, through its various governmental powers and through programs that that will encourage and reward the protection of locations that support arts and industry.
We are here to publicize, mobilize and help plan projects that will protect and preserve the Neumann complex, for ourselves and for our community at large. We invite you to join us.
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