WHERE: The promenade on the Hudson River from Hoboken to Jersey City, New Jersey.
START: Hoboken Terminal (PATH train, fully accessible; Hudson-Bergen Light Rail (fully accessible); Ferries to Manhattan (fully accessible); New Jersey Transit commuter rail (wheelchair lifts on the platforms, otherwise not accessible)
FINISH: Exchange Place station (PATH train, fully accessible)
DISTANCE: 2.3 miles (3.7 kilometers)
Photographs by Michael Cairl except where noted. Map courtesy footpathmap.org.
Note: The accessible PATH stations in Manhattan are at 33 Street and World Trade Center. The 33 Street station is accessible from the street and from the 34 Street - Herald Square subway stations (B, D, F, M trains and N, Q, R, W trains, both stations being fully accessible), the latter by way of a passageway with a ramp whose slope exceeds the guidelines of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). This ramp also has no handrails. The way between the subway and the World Trade Center PATH station is accessible but the elevator between the PATH mezzanine and the “Oculus” (concourse) is hard to find. It is on the north side of the fare control area, by the Duane Reade/Walgreens store.
Route of this walk, reading from top to bottom.
This walk illustrates the de-industrialization of the waterfront in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and New Jersey, and the transformation of the waterfront into a valued public space. Since the advent of containerized cargo after World War II, most maritime trade in the Port of New York and New Jersey is handled on the New Jersey side of the river. The waterfront in Hoboken and Jersey City used to be dominated by rail and marine transportation. Several steamship lines had their docks in Hoboken, not Manhattan. The great 1954 film On the Waterfront was filmed in Hoboken. Several railroads had their passenger and freight terminals along this waterfront: the New York and West Shore (later part of the New York Central system) just north in Weehawken; the Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western in Hoboken; and the Erie, the Pennsylvania, and the Jersey Central in Jersey City. All the railroads ran passenger ferries directly from their New Jersey terminals to Manhattan and put freight cars onto barges to be transported across the Hudson River to Manhattan and across New York Harbor to Brooklyn. Only the Pennsylvania would build a direct connection for passenger trains to Manhattan, in 1910, with the tunnels to Pennsylvania Station now used by Amtrak and New Jersey Transit.
Some rail freight traffic is still moved across New York Harbor by barge. Hoboken Terminal is the only one of the riverfront terminals that still exists in active use. The Jersey Central terminal, now the centerpiece of Liberty State Park, hasn’t seen a train since the 1960s.
The Port Authority Trans-Hudson Corporation (PATH) began life in 1908 as the Hudson and Manhattan Railroad (the “Hudson Tubes”), a subway-style service going from 33 Street and Hudson Terminal (near today’s World Trade Center) in Manhattan to Hoboken, Jersey City, and eventually Newark. It connected with the riverfront terminals of the Lackawanna (Hoboken station), the Erie (today’s Newport station), and the Pennsylvania (Exchange Place station), providing a more reliable connection than the railroads’ ferries. The Port of New York Authority, now the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, took over the Hudson and Manhattan in 1962 and operates it today.
The star attraction of this walk is the Manhattan skyline across the river, but the promenade is pleasant and new. Only a block or two inland from the riverfront and the new buildings along it lie an older Hoboken and Jersey City.
Looking south from near Hoboken Terminal.
Looking toward Manhattan from Newport.
We start at Hoboken Terminal, a big, magnificent train station that opened in 1907 and is on the National Register of Historic Places.
Hoboken Terminal from the Hudson River, 2012. The five ferry slips are in front. Photo credit: By Upstateherd - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=62597969
Stop inside the Waiting Room before starting the trip and admire the architecture. Hoboken Terminal is a major multi-modal transit facility, hosting commuter rail, light rail, PATH, local buses, and ferries. New Jersey Transit operates the commuter trains along the former Erie and Lackawanna lines from Hoboken (the Erie moved its trains from its own terminal to the Lackawanna’s Hoboken Terminal in 1956).
Two views of the Waiting Room at Hoboken Terminal.
Exit left from the Waiting Room and follow signs to Light Rail. Stay on the promenade along the river; the light rail station will be in front of you first and then on your left. Continue along the promenade, entering a large area called Newport that was once the site of Erie Terminal. For a detailed history of Erie Terminal and the surrounding area, go to Erie Railroad Terminal - Erie Railroad Terminal - Library Guides at New Jersey City University (libguides.com). Redevelopment of this area began in the 1980s with the construction of the Newport Center shopping mall and accelerated with the opening of the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail in 2000.
The waterfront at Newport.
Erie Terminal, where Newport is now, in the early 1950s. From “Charlie” on flickr.com,
Continuing south along the promenade, we go past a buff-colored brick structure on the right, and its look-alike at the end of a pier on the left. These are two of the four ventilation towers for the Holland Tunnel. The promenade turns to the west at Harsimus Cove, one of the places on this waterfront where rail freight barges once docked. Tall office buildings and hotels dominate the waterfront as one approaches Exchange Place, where the Pennsylvania Railroad once had one of the busiest railroad stations in the world. For a detailed history of the Exchange Place terminal go to Exchange Place - Exchange Place - Library Guides at New Jersey City University (libguides.com). Patronage declined after the Pennsylvania Railroad reached Manhattan in 1910. The terminal and the connecting elevated structure were demolished in the early 1960s. Just to the south of the terminal, the Colgate-Palmolive Company had a factory where the Goldman Sachs tower, which opened in 2004, stands today. The “Colgate Clock” remains, visible from lower Manhattan and a short walk south of Exchange Place on the riverfront.
Pennsylvania Railroad terminal, Jersey City (Exchange Place), circa 1910. Source unknown.
The Colgate Clock; the Goldman Sachs tower is to the right. Photograph by Allen Beatty.
This is an easy walk to enjoy on a nice day. It is full of the history of the waterfront and urban redevelopment. There are plenty of places to stop, relax, have a cup of coffee or a meal, and enjoy the view.