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.

Continue to Hoboken Terminal >>
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Well, the so-called Gold Coast is doing very well for itself. There really has been an explosion of high-end construction, and the light rail line lives up to the rumors of snazziness. There’s something deeper, too. In its transformation from heavy industry to offices and apartments, this area is an exemplar of the shift from manufacturing to high-tech services that has made the U.S. so prosperous in the last several decades.

Here, I present my attempt to come to my own understanding of a small bit of New Jersey by venturing through it myself. The journey was long. The transfers were many. But all you have to do is look at photos and read text.

Click on the map below to begin.

Begin in Jersey City >>