North Hudson, New Jersey

North Hudson is the collective name of the municipalities of Weehawken (2000 Census population of 13,501), Union City (67,088), West New York (45,768), Guttenberg (10,807) and North Bergen (58,092) in Hudson County, New Jersey. Though each municipality has an independent local government and school district, they collaborate (sometimes with Hoboken) on certain services including fire-fighting, water supply, sewerage treatment, emergency medical services, and vocational education.

Geography

Situated on the New Jersey Palisades and west bank of the Hudson River, the area is directly across from Midtown Manhattan and Upper West Side in New York City, north of Hoboken and Jersey City (the county seat), and east of the New Jersey Meadowlands. With an elevation (in some places over 250 feet/76 meters), North Hudson enjoys expansive views of the New York City skyline, the Meadowlands, and the Watchung Mountains. The geographically long narrow region is a contiguous urban area where it's often difficult to know when one's crossed a civic boundary and there is very little, if any, physical acknowledgment of the demarcations. In the absence of a urban master plan early throroughfares, such as the Hackensack Plank Road, Paterson Plank Road and Bulls Ferry Road, and early real-estate speculators, such as the Hoboken Land Improvement Company created the current street system. After the opening of the Lincoln Tunnel, the five towns agreed to re-number the east-west blocks (and coordinate house numbers), starting at 2nd Street in the south and 91st Street in the north. There are a few anomalies: West 18th and West 19th Street in Weehawken, which are east of those in Union City (and follow Hoboken's street grid); 32nd Street intersects 31st and 33rd Streets; North Bergen is south of the county line. Palisade Avenue, running along the spine of the area, is the only street that retains it name as passes through all the communities, and continues north into the southeastern Bergen County, with which it is geologically and historically connected. There are very few large green "open spaces", notably North Hudson Park (and the collection of private cemeteries on the Western Slope), though the dense urban grid is dotted with "vest pocket" parks and high school athletic fields. As new developments along the waterfront are built, so will the Hudson River Waterfront Walkway.

Character

With nearly 200,000 residents, North Hudson has a population density that is among the highest in the United States. It also has one of the nation's largest proportions of foreign-born residents. Most people refer to the town or neighborhood and where they live or work and often tend to identify with north-south transit corridors such as Boulevard East, Bergenline, Kennedy Boulevard, or increasingly, the recently "re-developed" waterfront. Though many are oriented to Manhattan, where they work, shop, and socialize, others are inclined to the west of the Hudson. Housing is primarily one and two family homes and low-rise apartment buildings, though there clusters of highrises overlooking the Hudson and Meadowlands. Many neighborhoods enjoy tree-lined streets and boast stately Edwardian era homes. There are shops, a few suburban-like strip malls, and light manufacturing facilities scattered throughout its neighborhoods. Bergenline Avenue is the longest commercial street in the state, boasting over 300 retail stores and restaurants and runs the entire length of Union City, West New York, Guttenberg, and into North Bergen, making it the main commercial strip for North Hudson.

History

Curiously, North Hudson lies north of Bergen, the first permanent settlement in New Jersey, founded in 1660, and was in the southeastern part of Bergen County until the establishment of Hudson County on February 22, 1840. The earliest residents were the Lenni Lenape Native Americans. In 1658, Governor Peter Stuyvesant of New Amsterdam negotiated a deal with them for the area named Bergen, "by the great rock above Wiehacken," including what would become North Hudson.

Like most of the region surrounding the Upper New York Bay, the area experienced waves of immigration, specifically: settlers from the Netherlands, British colonialists (often slave-holders), German-speaking farmers and entrepreneurs, Irish fleeing the famine, "Ellis Islanders", World Wars refugees, the "Spanish" (initially Cuban emigres, and later other South and Central Americans), and most recently, so-called "cosmopolitans". .

File:Hamiltonmonumentmap.jpg

An 1841 map shows the area as being part of Bergen and still very rural

In the mid-1800s and early 1900s, German Americans and Dutch dominated the area. They, along with Swiss and Austrian immigrants, founded the European-style lace making industries, for which they were famous, and North Hudson became the embroidery capitol of the United States. Many of the the factory buildings still house clothing manufacturers, while others have been converted to art studios or housing. It was this community who (in 1915) established what has become longest running passion play in the U.S., creating America's Oberammergau.

It was during the same period that the narrow waterfront at the base of the Palisades became (along with Hoboken, Jersey City, Bayonne, and Edgewater) an integral part of New York Harbor's shipping industry. Rail lines under and on both sides of the Palisades were laid. From its terminal in Weehawken the West Shore Railroad operated long-distance and commuter passenger train and ferry service (used by travellers and locals alike), from 1884-1959. North Hudson County Railway developed an extensive network of horse-drawn railroads and later, streetcars, taken over by Public Service Coordinated Transport which dismantled the system in the 1930s and 1940s, replacing them with buses.

In the 1960s and 1970s, many residents head to the suburbs (often close-by Bergen and Passaic County). Simultaneously middle-class and professional Cubans, fleeing the revolution in their home country, re-located to the area and are who generally considered to have "saved" it from a devastating downward spiral, leading to the nickname Havana on the Hudson.

Transporation

NY Waterway re-instituted ferry service in the late 1980s, and in 2006 opened a state-of-art terminal on the Waterfront for boats traversing the Hudson to lower and mid Manhattan.

The Hudson-Bergen Light Rail, connecting to south Hudson, has stations at Tonnelle Avenue in North Bergen, Bergenline Avenue and 48th Street at the Union City/West New York border, and Port Imperial and Lincoln Harbor on the Weehawken waterfront.

New Jersey Transit, since its opening, has promoted Bergenline Station as a hub/transfer between the light rail and buses: 22, 84, 86, 89, 156, 159, 181 and (one block west on JFK Boulevard) 88, 154. Manhattan and suburban-bound bus service is provided along Boulevard East, Bergenline, Kennedy Blvd., and 32nd Street.

Additionally there are many privately operated "carrtios" (licensed mini-buses) along Bergenline to Journal Square, downtown Jersey City and West 42nd Street in Manhattan.

See also

• Bergen Township
• Bergen Township
• Hudson River Waterfront Walkway
• Gateway Region
• Gold Coast
• New Jersey Palisades
• Pavonia, New Netherlands
• Union Township
• Union Hill
• West Hoboken Township