Pier A: Heaven, Hell or Hoboken
Listen at the stop, then read the transcript and follow the sources behind the story.
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Transcript
The lawn and skyline view make Pier A feel almost aggressively peaceful.
During the First World War, this waterfront became one of the most militarized places in the United States.
Hoboken had been a major German-American city and home port for powerful German shipping lines.
When the United States entered the war in April 1917, federal troops seized German ships and waterfront facilities.
The Army turned Hoboken into its principal port of embarkation for the American Expeditionary Forces.
Roughly two million servicemen passed through the city on the way to Europe or returning from it.
Ships, piers, trains, warehouses, troops and military bureaucracy transformed daily life.
The slogan “Heaven, Hell or Hoboken” came to represent the hope that soldiers would survive the Western Front and return through this port.
But the patriotic postcard hides another story.
Hoboken's large German community suddenly lived under suspicion.
Enemy-alien restrictions cost people jobs and homes.
German shipping companies were shut down.
Residents were displaced from waterfront zones.
A city that had been commercially connected to Germany became a symbol of American war mobilization almost overnight.
That is a dramatic example of how quickly national politics can rearrange local identity.
After the armistice, returning soldiers and the bodies of war dead came back through Hoboken.
The waterfront carried celebration and grief at the same time.
Today the old military piers are gone or transformed.
That disappearance makes the park more powerful if you know what stood here.
A family tossing a ball now occupies ground once organized around sending an army overseas.
Hoboken did not merely watch America's entry into World War I.
For many soldiers, Hoboken was the last American city they saw before Europe—and the first they hoped to see again.