This was personal.
I've always loved this place. I live 3 blocks down the street from it, I've enjoyed photographing it............I even met the great love of my life face-to-face for the very first time there when she got off a train.
After I saw justwatching's post in another thread here about a problem between Anderson St and Hoboken, I checked The Record's site, and was horrified to find out that this great structure was destroyed.
After posting about it, I ran right over to take pictures with my cell phone. I'm glad I didn't wait. The snow has since gotten heavier and I wouldn't be surprised if what's left is torn down today so train service can resume without fear of collapse from the vibrations.
A woman I spoke to on the scene told me her son, who she indicated lives in the vicinity of Maple St by the tracks (It's hard to tell exactly where from just a wave of her hand in that direction), was woken at 5:30am by what he thought were firecrackers.
She said the noises came from the back of the station - the side furthest from Anderson St.
A cop told me the call came in at 5:53am. If you look at the first picture, the sidewalk clock is stopped at 6:05am, when the power was shut off.
A man in a wool cap, who sported a bluetooth phone on his right ear, came around the corner from Linden onto Anderson and saw the scene. His jaw dropped as he stopped dead in his tracks.
"Oh my God! What happened?"
I told him.
It truly is a sad day for Hackensack and its residents.
Here's what I saw when I first got there around noon:
Water in, smoke out:
This is almost 7 hours after the fire started:
As I was leaving, I took one final photo. Its angle is vaguely reminiscent of that of the antique colorized postcard from 99 years ago posted above in this thread:
On a personal photographic note, one of the pictures I took today reminded me of one I took a couple of years ago when I horizontalized on the track with my camera:
(all images and text are ©Bob Leafe)
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