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After a zippy ride on the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail, I arrive at Hoboken Terminal, the only of the original waterfont terminals that still operates. It once sat at the center of a massive complex that moved passengers and freight from trains onto ferries and barges that plied New York Harbor.
This photo, from the Historic American Engineering Record (HAER) at the Library of Congress, suggests the magnitude of the facility. The passenger terminal is at the bottom of the photograph, with its trainshed on the left, waiting room in the middle, and ferry terminal on the right. Off the bottom of this photograph were more large docks for unloading coal and produce.
Today, Hoboken Terminal serves several of NJ Transit’s commuter lines. The waiting room was renovated several years ago, to great effect. Photographs from the Library of Congress suggest that, until this room was renovated, its ornate Tiffany skylight sported blackout paint from the Second World War.
The exterior of the terminal is sheathed in copper. This is the main entrance; to the right is the trainshed, and to the left is the ferry terminal. Like the CRRNJ terminal featured in the Jersey City page, this terminal was built primarily to move passengers from their trains onto ferries that went to Manhattan, not to directly serve the town in which it was located, so the exit to the city is a bit awkward compared to the smooth rail-to-boat flow.
The entrance has “Lackawanna R.R.” over the door because this was built as the terminal of the Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western Railroad. It merged with the Erie Railroad in 1960 to form the Erie-Lackawanna, and, following a bankruptcy declaration, the E-L was folded into the Federal Government’s Conrail. Portions of the former Lackawanna are today operated by Norfolk Southern.
From just south of the terminal, we can see what has become of the Erie Railroad’s terminal, which was abandoned in the 1960s as its functions were merged into the Lackawanna’s facility. The group of tall buildings on the right hand side of the following photograph are part of the Newport development, built from the 1980s onwards on the site of the Erie’s terminal. (The PATH station now called “Pavonia/Newport” still has ornamental “E”s on the tops of columns from when it served the Erie.) A large mall sits on the waterfront (it features all of the shopping options available elsewhere, but in more depressing surroundings). The last tall building on the left in the photograph is the Goldman Sachs building in Jersey City, and the squat tan building near the middle of the photograph is a ventilation tower for the Holland Tunnel. In the foreground is a pile field left over from one of the Lackawanna’s dismantled freight docks.
Even though Hoboken Terminal’s waiting room has been refurbished, the ferry terminal has not; it is closed to the public and has been replaced by a smaller new facility adjacent to the trainshed. The doors to the ramps leading to the ferry area were open when I was there, and I got a few pictures that hint at the enormous ferry concourse that lies beyond in disrepair.
Hoboken’s city center is very close to the terminal.
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My New Jersey saga begins by taking the PATH train from the World Trade Center site to Exchange Place, Jersey City. Exiting the PATH train at Exchange Place, Jersey City’s waterfront appeal becomes apparent. Lower Manhattan rises impressively across the river.
Jersey City has been substantially redeveloped in the last decade or so. Exchange Place was the site of the Pennsylvania Railroad’s New York terminal before it built the famous Pennsylvania Station in Manhattan (predecessor to the current one). The PATH station at Exchange Place was originally built to shuttle mainline railroad passengers from the PRR’s terminal into Manhattan, but it now serves an attractive district of high-rise office buildings, including this one, built by Goldman Sachs in 2004. Rumor has it that many of its floors are empty, the result of Goldman’s staff balking at the idea of working in New Jersey. At 42 stories and 781 feet tall, it’s apparently the tallest building in the world outside of a central business district.
The PATH train has additional local interest: it’s responsible for one of the many layers of complication involved in figuring out who is responsible for rebuilding the World Trade Center. The World Trade Center was built on the site of the Hudson Terminal, an office building and train station complex owned by the Hudson & Manhattan Railroad. When the H&M began to falter financially in the 1950s, the Port Authority brought it under public ownership and the railroad became the PATH (Port Authority Trans-Hudson). The Hudson Terminal, along with many blocks around it, was demolished and replaced by the World Trade Center in the late 1960s. Through it all, the Port Authority retained ownership of the land on which the complex sat, though development rights were leased into private hands.
In front of Goldman’s building is a pleasant promenade along the river.
Jersey City’s transformation is ongoing, and there are some unexpected brownfields among the glassy office towers. Across the street from the Goldman Sachs building is a forlorn, debris-strewn lot with the famous Colgate clock that marks the former location of a toothpaste factory. The clock is a landmark and will remain through whatever redevelopment goes on here.
The clock used to sit on the roof of the factory. This photo is from the Historic American Engineering Record at the Library of Congress.
Looking downriver from the Colgate clock, three landmarks appear. On the right are the Statue of Liberty and the main building at Ellis Island. On the left is one of only two big railroad terminals that remain on the New Jersey waterfront. This one served the Central Railroad of New Jersey, and like all of the other old terminals, it had a ferry port (now demolished) that permitted passengers to walk off of their trains and onto ferries swiftly and efficiently. The head house has been renovated and is now a visitors’ center. The train shed sits derelict, and the yards leading into the station have been turned into Liberty State Park.
New Jersey has lately been at the forefront of light rail development, and the most substantial of the state’s three light rail projects connects Jersey City to Bayonne, Hoboken, Weehawken, and Union City. The lines mostly travel on abandoned or little-used freight trackage, but it runs in the street in downtown Jersey City, lending a sort of European feel to the whole thing. Everything is brand new; the first stage opened in 2000, and the line assumed its present form in February of 2006.
I leave Jersey City on the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail line and head for Hoboken.