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Eulogy for a Small-Town Paper
What happens when a town loses its news source
Hoboken Reporter (1983–2019)
In the 1940s, before the newer, bigger container ships of the 1960s required deep ports, small cities like Hoboken, New Jersey, were hotspots for freight shipping. As dockworkers loaded goods on and off the waterfront, corruption ran rampant. A reporter named Malcolm Johnson wrote 24 investigative articles for the New York Sun in 1948. Johnson’s series inspired the 1954 film On the Waterfront, about a boxer who throws a fight to satisfy a Hoboken mob boss.
“I could have been a contender,” Marlon Brando tells Rod Steiger in the back of a car as it rolls down River Street, along the edge of the city. “I could have been somebody.”
As the second half of the 20th century wore on, shipping left the mile-square city. Corruption lingered, and the waterfront languished. In the 1980s, developers converted rows of inexpensive apartments to condos, and in the 2000s, luxury high-rises rose all around. The Maxwell House Coffee factory on the waterfront closed in 1992, causing hundreds of layoffs, and became Maxwell Place condos.
In the 1980s, a local real estate developer bought a small weekly newspaper to provide news for the growing community. The little paper grew in size. It…
