Before and After: Reimagining Hoboken Architecture

THE CITADEL (450 Seventh Street)
His nickname was already Pupie when little Frank Raia attended Hoboken’s Public School 8, also known as the Sadie F. Leinkauf School. Did he like going there? “I loved my school so much that I bought it,” Raia, 63, explains today. “I wanted to live in my homeroom.”

The school, built in 1903, had been vacant when Raia purchased it in 1983. His plan was to convert it into 68 affordable residential units for a specific market: the working class who earned a little too much to qualify for subsidized housing. “I wanted to keep those people in Hoboken. Nobody knew what the hell I was talking about,” says Raia, noting that he had the last laugh: “I ended up selling them all in about 15 minutes.” (Raia says that a couple of the original buyers were his former teachers.)

With 24-inch brick walls, high ceilings, lots of natural night, and commercial space on the lower level, the Citadel remains very popular after more than three decades. In 1985, the Leinkauf School was added to the New Jersey Register of Historic Places. “It has a lot of meaning to me,” Raia explains. “I think it’s the most beautiful building in the entire city.”

Hoboken Architecture — The Citadel (450 Seventh Street); Liberty Real Estate Photo