The Heights or Jersey City Heights is a neighborhood in Jersey City, New Jersey, located atop the New Jersey Palisades, along the west side of the Hudson River. It is bound by Paterson Plank Road on the north, Highway 139 on the south, Hoboken on the east, and the Hackensack River on the west. [1] [2] and Penhorn Creek on the west. [2] Its postal area ZIP Codes are 07307, and portions of 07306. [2]
Central Avenue is one of Jersey City's 13 different neighborhood shopping districts. [3] with more than 240 businesses serving the area. [4] Pershing Field (named for General John J Pershing) is a memorial park in the center of the district that was built on a military training ground. It offers a green space, baseball fields, a swimming pool and ice-skating rink. The adjacent Jersey City Reservoir No. 3 has been preserved as a state designated wetland and park. Many stately Victorian and Edwardian homes distinguish the Heights, particularly along Summit Avenue and Sherman Place. [5]
An elevator at Congress Street and Paterson Plank Road descends to the 9th Street-Congress Street station of the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail. [5] Mountain Ave [6] and New York Ave are among the streets that run through the area. [7]
The Heights was part of the colony of Pavonia, New Netherland, the superintendent of which was the American patriarch of the Van Vorst family. A Van Vorst House built in 1742 by the family (now on Palisade Avenue) is considered to be the oldest building in Hudson County. Summit Avenue, slightly to the west follows an Hackensack Indian trail that became the main road from the villages of Communipaw and Bergen and eventually connected to the Paterson and Hackensack Plank Roads. [8] [9]
E.R.V Wright was the first Mayor of Hudson City. [10]
In the early 20th century, before Hollywood, the American motion picture industry was mainly based in New Jersey towns along the Hudson River. [11] Chief among them was Fort Lee, which was the nation's first motion picture capital, [12] [13] with other early film studios headquartered in neighboring towns such as Jersey City. [11] Among those was a branch of the French company Pathé, the largest film equipment and production company in the world, whose American factory and studio facility was in established in the Heights in 1910, in a building that still overlooks Paterson Plank Road. Pathé also established the subsidiary Eclectic Film Company, as a distributor for both its American and European product. Although the Jersey City plant produced moderately popular comedies, dramas, and newsreels largely directed at the US market, Perils of Pauline was the first American-made Pathé effort to achieve worldwide success under the Eclectic banner. [14] [15] [16]
Jersey City Public Schools operates public schools in the Heights. [17]
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Newark operates area Catholic Schools. St. Anne School was located in Jersey City Heights, and opened in 1904. [18] Its enrollment declined by 33 in 2011 and increased by 22 in 2012. James Carroll, a member of the Jersey City Police Department and a member of the school board, Carroll stated that the 2011 decline was due to parents being afraid that the school would close. [19] In 2011, the archdiocese considered closing the school, but a fundraising generated sufficient money to keep it open. [18] It closed in 2012. [19] That year the building housed the K-8 grades of the Hoboken Charter School on a temporary basis as the regular K-8 building of the charter school was badly damaged by a fire. [20]
North Bergen is a township in the northern part of Hudson County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 United States census, the township's population was 63,361, an increase of 2,588 (+4.3%) from the 2010 census count of 60,773, which in turn reflected an increase of 2,681 (+4.6%) from the 58,092 counted in the 2000 census. The township was incorporated in 1843. It was much diminished in territory by a series of secessions. Situated on the Hudson Palisades, it is one of the hilliest municipalities in the United States. Like neighboring North Hudson communities, North Bergen is among those places in the nation with the highest population density.
Union City is a city in the northern part of Hudson County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 United States census, the city was the state's 18th-most-populous municipality, with a population of 68,589, an increase of 2,134 (+3.2%) from the 2010 census count of 66,455, which in turn had reflected a decline of 633 (−0.9%) from the 67,088 counted in the 2000 census. As of the 2010 Census, among cities with a population of more than 50,000, it was the most densely populated city in the United States, with a density of 54,138 per square mile of land. The Census Bureau's Population Estimates Program calculated that the city's population was 65,366 in 2022, ranking the city the 590th-most-populous in the country.
Weehawken is a township in the northern part of Hudson County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It is located on the Hudson Waterfront and Hudson Palisades overlooking the Hudson River. As of the 2020 United States census, the township's population was 17,197, an increase of 4,643 (+37.0%) from the 2010 census count of 12,554, which in turn reflected a decline of 947 (−7.0%) from the 13,501 counted in the 2000 census.
The Hudson–Bergen Light Rail (HBLR) is a light rail system in Hudson County, New Jersey, United States. Owned by New Jersey Transit (NJT) and operated by the 21st Century Rail Corporation, it connects the communities of Bayonne, Jersey City, Hoboken, Weehawken, Union City, at the city line with West New York, and North Bergen.
The Journal Square Transportation Center is a multi-modal transportation hub located on Magnolia Avenue and Kennedy Boulevard at Journal Square in Jersey City, New Jersey, United States. Owned and operated by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the complex includes a ten-story tower, a retail plaza, a bus terminal, a two-level parking facility, and the Journal Square station of the PATH rail transit system. The underground station has a high ceiling and a mezzanine level connecting the platforms.
9th Street–Congress Street station is a station on the Hudson–Bergen Light Rail (HBLR) operated by New Jersey Transit which opened on September 7, 2004. Located at Ninth Street, west of Jackson Street, in Hoboken, New Jersey, the station also serves the Heights of Jersey City. There are two tracks and two side platforms.
Paterson Plank Road is a road that runs through Passaic, Bergen and Hudson Counties in northeastern New Jersey. The route, originally laid in the colonial era, connects the city of Paterson and the Hudson River waterfront. It has largely been superseded by Route 3, but in the many towns it passes it has remained an important local thoroughfare, and in some cases been renamed.
The Hackensack Plank Road, also known as Bergen Turnpike, was a major artery which connected the cities of Hoboken and Hackensack, New Jersey. Like its cousin routes, the Newark Plank Road and Paterson Plank Road, it travelled over Bergen Hill and across the Hackensack Meadows from the Hudson River waterfront to the city for which it was named. It was originally built as a colonial turnpike road as Hackensack and Hoboken Turnpike. The route mostly still exists today, though some segments are now called the Bergen Turnpike. It was during the 19th century that plank roads were developed, often by private companies which charged a toll. As the name suggests, wooden boards were laid on a roadbed in order to prevent horse-drawn carriages and wagons from sinking into softer ground on the portions of the road that passed through wetlands. The company that built the road received its charter on November 30, 1802. The road followed the route road from Hackensack to Communipaw that was described in 1679 as a "fine broad wagon-road."
Bergen Hill refers to the lower Hudson Palisades in New Jersey, where they emerge on Bergen Neck, which in turn is the peninsula between the Hackensack and Hudson Rivers, and their bays. In Hudson County, it reaches a height of 260 feet.
The Hudson Waterfront is an urban area of northeastern New Jersey along the lower reaches of the Hudson River, the Upper New York Bay and the Kill van Kull. Though the term can specifically mean the shoreline, it is often used to mean the contiguous urban area between the Bayonne Bridge and the George Washington Bridge that is approximately 19 miles (31 km) long. Historically, the region has been known as Bergen Neck, the lower peninsula, and Bergen Hill, lower Hudson Palisades. It has sometimes been called the Gold Coast.
County Route 617 is 4.55-mile (7.32 km) long and follows one street, Summit Avenue along the ridge of the Hudson Palisades in Hudson County, New Jersey. Its southern end is CR 622, or Grand Street, at Communipaw Junction in the Bergen-Lafayette Section of Jersey City. Its northern end is CR 691, 32nd Street, a section of the Bergen Turnpike, in Union City.
Central Avenue is a 12-block-long thoroughfare in the Heights neighborhood of Jersey City, New Jersey, United States. One of 13 shopping districts in the city, it is designated County Route 663 for 1.60-mile (2.57 km) of its length. It originates at the intersection of Summit Avenue and Pavonia Avenue, and runs north, intersecting Newark Avenue one block east of Five Corners to Paterson Plank Road near Transfer Station. The avenue continues north through Union City without the county route designation to 35th Street, two blocks north of Hackensack Plank Road.
Shippen Street is an east-west street in Weehawken, New Jersey. The eastern terminal, a cobblestone double hairpin turn is listed on the New Jersey Register of Historic Places. Shippen Street was developed at the start of the 20th century as part of the Weehawken Heights, one of the town's residential neighborhoods.
The North Hudson Railway Company built and operated a streetcar system in Hudson County and southeast Bergen County, New Jersey before and after the start of the 20th century. It was founded by Hillric J. Bonn who became the first President in 1865 and served for 26 years until his death, and eventually taken over by the Public Service Railway. In its endeavors to overcome the formidable obstacle of ascending the lower Hudson Palisades, or Bergen Hill, it devised numerous innovative engineering solutions including funicular wagon lifts, an inclined elevated railway, an elevator and viaducts.
Palisade Avenue is the name given to a historic road which parallels the eastern crest of Hudson Palisades in northeastern New Jersey. It travels between Jersey City and Fort Lee, passing through Jersey City Heights, North Hudson, and Cliffside Park, with various parts carrying Hudson and Bergen county route designations. The avenue re-aligns itself at several places along its route as it crosses traditional municipal boundaries created in the 19th century. As a primary route running along the top of the Hudson Palisades, many segments offer scenic views of the Hudson River and the New York skyline. Since 2020 there is proposed state legislation to restrict building heights that would rise above the cliffs on the eastern side of Palisade Avenue along the entire corridor from Jersey City to Fort Lee.
The Hudson Shakespeare Company is a regional Shakespeare touring festival based in Jersey City in Hudson County, New Jersey, that produces an annual summer Shakespeare in the Park festival and often features lesser done Shakespeare works such as The Two Noble Kinsmen and Timon of Athens. The company also produces several modern-day productions in non theatrical venues such as their courtroom shows of Inherit the Wind and A Few Good Men in the Hoboken Municipal Courtroom. It produce a yearly educational program that ranges from student workshops to full length Shakespeare productions.
The Hudson County Park System owns and operates several county parks in Hudson County, New Jersey. It has its roots in the City Beautiful movement around the turn of the twentieth century. The system comprises eight parks comprising 716.52 acres (290.0 ha). Additionally, the county owns acreage in preservation areas in the New Jersey Meadowlands
Bogota was a railroad station in Bogota, New Jersey, at Court Street/Fort Lee Road west of River Road and east of the Court Street Bridge over the Hackensack River. It was located on the New York, Susquehanna and Western Railway Main Line, which provided passenger service between the 1870s and 1960s.
Hudson County New Jersey Street Map. Hagstrom Map Company, Inc. 2008. ISBN 978-0-88097-763-0.
