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Legendary Locals of Jersey City-Book by John Gomez Shines New Light on The City’s Movers and Shakers

    By Sally Deering        Photo of John Gomez by Bob Foster, Hoboken Historical Society 

john gomez headshot 2

Published as part of the new Arcadia Publishing imprint Legendary Locals, John Gomez’s book LEGENDARY LOCALS OF JERSEY CITY shines new light on the people of Jersey City, past and present who stand out in the crowd. LEGENDARY LOCALS OF JERSEY CITY (Arcadia Publishing; 128 pgs.; $21.99, soft cover😉 focuses on Jersey City’s Who’s Who and “Who Was”

riverviewobserver.netAt first, when Gomez, who is also the founder of the Jersey City Landmarks Conservancy was approached by Arcadia Publishing to do the book, he was reluctant.

“I write about buildings,” Gomez says. “I’m an architectural historian, but then I thought we can’t have buildings without the people in them, so I agreed. I had a list of 500 people and had to shrink it to 150.”

Gomez decided to include information in the book that people who are historians would not necessarily know. To accomplish this required a lot of research, he says, and when he decided to add Jersey City Mayor Frank “Boss” Hague to the list, he came across surprising tidbits like the time Hague had a run-in with Russian communist Leon Trotsky in Journal Square. Hague, who was anti-Communist, learned Trotsky was to make an appearance in Journal Square to recruit communists and Hague was there to kick him out. Continue reading Legendary Locals of Jersey City-Book by John Gomez Shines New Light on The City’s Movers and Shakers