Exchange Place (Jersey City)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Coordinates: 40°42′N 74°02′W / 40.7°N 74.033°W Exchange Place is a district of Downtown Jersey City, New Jersey that is sometimes referred to as "Wall Street West" due to the concentration of financial concerns which have offices there. The namesake is a square of about 200 feet long at the foot of Montgomery Street at the Hudson River which was created by landfilling of the shore at Paulus Hook and has been major transportation hub since the colonial era. [1]
A high concentration of highrise office and residential buildings in the city are located in the district radiating from Exchange Place, which since the 1990s has overtaken Journal Square as Hudson County's major business district. The Mack-Cali building is host to several nesting sites for Peregrine Falcons. The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, Division of Fish & Wildlife, maintains a Jersey City Peregrine Cam at some of the sites on the building. A statue comemmerating the Katyn massacre is sited on the square.
Contents |
[edit] Vicinity
- Colgate Clock
- New York Waterway Paulus Hook Ferry Terminal
- Harborside Financial Center
- Goldman Sachs Tower, the tallest building in New Jersey
- Morris Canal Little Basin
- J. Owen Grundy Park, extending in Hudson River
[edit] Transportation
- New Jersey Transit bus routes 1, 43, 80, 81, 82, 86
- Red & Tan in Hudson County: 4
- Montgomery & Westside IBOA
[edit] History as transportation hub
The first steam ferry service in New York Harbor and the world established in 1812 by Robert Livingston (1746-1813) and Robert Fulton and travelled between Paulus Hook and Cortlandt Street Ferry in Manhattan. New York,[2] The ferry dock stood at the head of the important highway to Newark (and points west and south) established in 1795.[3] The ferry in turn influenced the location of the terminal of the New Jersey Railroad, which opened in 1838 running from the ferry dock via Newark to New Brunswick. The railroad purchased the ferry operation in 1853[4] and in 1858 built a much-needed larger intermodal terminal. After acquiring the railroad in 1871, the Pennsylvania Railroad replaced the terminal in 1876 and yet again in 1888-1892[5]. Passengers could move directly between the trains and ferries without going outside (a similar plan can still be seen today at Hoboken Terminal). The railroad referred to the location simply as Jersey City, and if necessary to distinguish it from other railroads' terminals, as the Pennsylvania station.
It was probably the street railways, the local transportation in Jersey City, that first needed to identify the location more precisely as Exchange Place. Beginning with horsecars in 1860, the local network connected the ferry with neighborhoods in the city and nearby towns. An off-street terminal called "Exchange Place" was established in 1891. It was almost at the water's edge, across the street from the Pennsylvania Railroad terminal and with easy access to the ferries[6]. Cars with signs reading EXCHANGE PLACE could be seen all over town.
The Hudson and Manhattan Railroad opened its tunnels from Exchange Place to New York in 1910[7]. Significantly, the station was at first called "Pennsylvania Railroad Station", not Exchange Place[8], but by 1916 the name was expanded to include "Exchange Place"[9]. By 1926 the H & M station was simply "Exchange Place"[10]. The Pennsylvania Railroad did not officially give in until some years later, but all the stations, and the neighborhood, were firmly known as Exchange Place by the 1920s.
For many years functioned similarly to Hudson Place farther up the Hudson waterfront as a terminus for many trolley lines which crisscrossed Hudson County. At one time more than ten lines operated by the Public Service Railway originated/terminated[11] Bustitution was completed in 1949.[12]
Ferry was also discontinued in 1949[13], and while Pennsylvania Railroad service dwindled after the opening of Penn Station in New York in 1910, it did not end until 1962[14]. Following the end of service on the Jersey City Branch, the remains of the large terminal were demolished, leaving a large open space on the waterfront. This and the elimination of other railroad passenger and freight yards along the river during the 1960s and 1970s opened up the land that would be used for redevelopment. The continued use of the name "Exchange Place" was based on the Hudson and Manhattan station (PATH since 1962) and signs on the bus routes that had replaced the trolleys.
[edit] References
- ^ [1] NJCU:Jersey City then and Now]
- ^ Brian J. Cudahy, Over and Back. New York: Fordham University Press, 1990. p20-24,360,362.
- ^ John T. Cunningham, Newark. Newark: New Jersey Historical Society, 1966. p84-85.
- ^ Brian J. Cudahy, Over and Back. New York: Fordham University Press, 1990. p59.
- ^ Carl Condit, The Port of New York. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980. v1 p46-52,152-168.
- ^ John Harrington Riley, The Newark City Subway Lines. 1987. p194.
- ^ Carl Condit, The Port of New York. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980. v1 p247-254.
- ^ Official Guide of the Railways. January 1910, p.68.
- ^ Official Guide of the Railways. June 1916, p.397.
- ^ Official Guide of the Railways. February 1926, p.308.
- ^ List of Public Service Railway lines. (2009, October 30). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 23:31, November 13, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_Public_Service_Railway_lines&oldid=322871098
- ^ French, Kenneth, Images of Rail: Railroads of Hoboken and Jersey City,Arcadia Publishing, 2002, p125, ISBN 978073850966-2
- ^ Brian J. Cudahy, Over and Back. New York: Fordham University Press, 1990. p362.
- ^ Carl Condit, The Port of New York. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981. v2 p228.
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||
.jpg)
