Lenape and New Netherland The land that is now Jersey City was part of
Lenapehoking and inhabited by the
Lenape, a collection of
Native American tribes (later called the Delaware Indian) that were part of the
Algonquian nation. In 1609,
Henry Hudson, seeking an alternate route to
East Asia on behalf of the
Dutch East India Company, anchored his small vessel
Halve Maen (English: Half Moon) at
Sandy Hook,
Harsimus Cove and
Weehawken Cove, and elsewhere along what was later named the
North River. After spending nine days surveying the area and meeting its inhabitants, he sailed as far north as
Albany and later claimed the region for the
Netherlands. The contemporary flag of the city is a variation on the
Prince's Flag from the Netherlands. The stripes are blue, white and yellow, with the center of the flag showing the city seal, depicting Hudson's ship, the Half Moon, and other modern vessels. By 1621, the
Dutch West India Company was organized to manage this new territory and in June 1623,
New Netherland became a Dutch province, with headquarters in
New Amsterdam.
Michael Reyniersz Pauw received a land grant as
patroon on the condition that he would establish a settlement of not fewer than fifty persons within four years. He chose the west bank of the
Hudson River and purchased the land from the Lenape for 80
fathoms (146 m) of
wampum, 20 fathoms (37 m) of cloth, 12
kettles, six guns, two blankets, one double kettle, and half a
barrel of beer. This grant is dated November 22, 1630, and is the earliest known conveyance for what are now
Hoboken and Jersey City. Pauw, however, was an
absentee landlord who neglected to populate the area and was obliged to sell his holdings back to the Company in 1633. That year, a house was built at
Communipaw for
Jan Evertsen Bout, superintendent of the colony, which had been named
Pavonia (the
Latinized form of Pauw's name means "peacock" and Pavonia means "land of the peacock"). Shortly after, another house was built at Harsimus Cove in 1634 and became the home of Cornelius Henrick Van Vorst, who had succeeded Bout as superintendent, and whose family would become influential in the development of the city. By the 1640s, relations with the Lenape deteriorated, in part because
Director-General Willem Kieft attempted to drive out the Lenape through intimidation and taxation. During
Kieft's War, approximately 120 Lenape were killed by the Dutch, including women and children, in a massacre ordered by Kieft at Pavonia on the night of February 25, 1643. The attack was ordered without the approval of his
advisory council, against the wishes of the colonists and led to a series of raids and reprisals by the Lenape and the virtual destruction of the settlement on the west bank. On May 11, 1647,
Peter Stuyvesant arrived in New Amsterdam to replace Kieft as Director-General of New Netherland. On September 15, 1655, Pavonia was attacked as part of a
Munsee occupation of New Amsterdam called the
Peach War that saw 40 colonists killed and over 100, mostly women and children, taken captive and held at Paulus Hook. They were later ransomed to New Amsterdam. On January 10, 1658, Stuyvesant "re-purchased" the scattered communities of farmsteads that characterized the Dutch settlements of Pavonia: Communipaw, Harsimus,
Paulus Hook, Hoebuck,
Awiehaken,
Pamrapo, and other lands "behind
Kill van Kull". The village of
Bergen (located inside a palisaded garrison) was established by the settlers who wished to return to the west bank of the Hudson on what is now
Bergen Square in 1660, the first
town square in North America, and officially chartered by Stuyvesant on September 5, 1661, as the state's first local civil government. The village was designed by
Jacques Cortelyou, the first
surveyor of New Amsterdam.
Province of New Jersey On August 27, 1664, four English frigates sailed into
New York Harbor and captured
Fort Amsterdam, and by extension, all of New Netherland, a prelude to the
Second Anglo-Dutch War, and renamed it
New York. Under the
Articles of Capitulation, the Dutch residents of Bergen were allowed to continue their way of life and worship. Later in 1664, the
Duke of York (later
James II), granted his new land between the Hudson River and
Delaware River to Sir
George Carteret in recognition of his loyalty to the
Crown through the
English Civil War. Carteret named the land
New Jersey after his homeland, the
Channel Island of
Jersey. The
Concession and Agreement was issued soon after providing
religious freedom and recognition of private property in the colony. In exchange, residents were required to pledge loyalty to their new government and pay annual fees known as
quit-rents. In 1668, the
Bergen town charter was confirmed by
Philip Carteret, the first English provincial
Governor of New Jersey. Following the
Treaty of Westminster, New Jersey split into
East Jersey and
West Jersey. From 1674 to 1702, Bergen was part of East Jersey and became a town in
Bergen County on March 7, 1683, one of the four newly independent counties in East Jersey. In 1702, New Jersey was reunified and became a
royal colony. In 1710, by
royal decree of
Queen Anne of Great Britain, Bergen County was enlarged to include land that had been a part of
Essex County. As a result, the village of
Hackensack (in the newly formed
New Barbados Township) was considered more accessible by the majority of the county's new inhabitants and became the new
county seat. Bergen was later re-established by
royal charter on January 4, 1714. and operated the service from Paulus Hook to
Cortlandt Street. To further attract patrons to his ferry landing, Van Vorst created a mile-long circular
horse racing track that attracted tourists from both sides of the Hudson and built the Van Vorst Tavern near Grand and Hudson Streets as a one-story building with a Dutch roof and eaves and an overhanging porch that faced the river. To further ensure the profitability of his business ventures on the small island of Paulus Hook, he created an embankment road above the tidal marshes to the mainland. Ahead of the Revolutionary War, Van Vorst declared himself a
patriot and in 1774 was appointed to one of the committees of correspondence, representing Bergen County and attended a meeting in
New Brunswick to elect delegates to the
Second Continental Congress.
American Revolution In 1776, even before the
war, General
George Washington ordered
American patriots to construct several
forts to defend the western banks of the
Hudson River, one of which was located at Paulus Hook. The fort was a naturally defensible position that guarded New York from British attack, guarded the Hudson River channel and the gateway to New Jersey. Following the defeat of General Washington and the
Continental Army at the
Battle of Brooklyn, the
British took control of New York City on September 15, 1776 and turned their ships towards Paulus Hook. On September 23, the American patriots abandoned the fort and moved munitions and supplies to Bergen, leaving the fort to become the first New Jersey territory invaded and occupied by the British. In mid-summer 1779, a 23-year-old
Princeton University graduate, Major
Henry Lee, recommended to General Washington a daring plan for the
Continental Army to attack the fort, in what became known as the
Battle of Paulus Hook. The assault was planned to begin shortly after midnight on August 19, 1779. Lee led a force of about 300 men, some of whom got lost during the march through the swampy, marshy land. The attack was late to start but the main contingent of the force was able to reach the fort's gate without being challenged. It is believed that the British mistook the approaching force for allied
Hessians returning from patrol, though this has not been definitively documented. The attacking Patriots succeeded in damaging the fort and took 158 British prisoners, but were unable to destroy the fort and
spike its cannons. As daytime approached, Lee decided the prudent action was to have his Patriots withdraw before British forces from New York could cross the river. Paulus Hook remained in British hands until after the war but the battle was a small strategic victory for the forces of independence as it forced the British to abandon their plans for taking additional rebel positions in the New York area. Later that August, General Washington met with the
Marquis de Lafayette in the village of
Bergen to discuss war strategy over lunch and to bait the British into attacking Bergen from New York. The meeting purportedly took place under an apple tree at the
Van Wagenen House on Academy Street. Additionally, a nearby "point of rocks" at the east end of the street provided an ideal vantage point for military surveillance of the Hudson River. One day in September 1780, a local Bergen farmer,
Jane Tuers, was selling her goods in British-occupied
Manhattan when she stopped in
Fraunces Tavern and spoke with the owner,
Samuel Fraunces. He informed Tuers that British soldiers were in his tavern toasting General
Benedict Arnold, who was to deliver
West Point to the British. Tuers returned to Bergen later that day and informed her brother Daniel Van Reypen about the conspiracy. Van Reypen, a staunch patriot, rode to
Hackensack to meet with General
Anthony Wayne who then sent Van Reypen to inform General Washington of the conspiracy. The information provided by Tuers confirmed what Washington had suspected of Arnold and led to the arrest, trial, conviction and hanging of co-conspirator
John André for
treason and stopped the plot to surrender West Point. Arnold would later defect to the British to escape prosecution. On November 22, 1783, the British evacuated Paulus Hook and sailed home three days before they left New York on
Evacuation Day. These events have been commemorated throughout the city. In the mid-1800s, Bergen named
Lafayette Park in honor of Marquis de Lafayette, whose name is now synonymous with Communipaw. In 1903, an
obelisk was erected at Paulus Hook Park at the intersection of Washington and Grand Streets, the site of the fort, to memorialize the Battle of Paulus Hook. In 1925, a plaque honoring Jane Tuer's heroism was installed at the site of her former home now
Hudson Catholic Regional High School. In 2021, the restored Van Wagenen House was re-opened as the Museum of Jersey City History. The consortium of 35 investors behind the company were predominantly
Federalists who, like Hamilton, had been swept out of power in the election of 1800 by
Thomas Jefferson and other
Democratic-Republicans. Large tracts of land in Paulus Hook were purchased by the company with the titles owned by Anthony Dey, who was from a prominent old Dutch family, and his two cousins, Colonel
Richard Varick, the former mayor of New York City (1789–1801), and
Jacob Radcliff, a Justice of the
New York Supreme Court who would later become
mayor of New York City from 1810 to 1811 and again from 1815 to 1818. They laid out the city squares and streets that still characterize the neighborhood, giving them names also seen in
Lower Manhattan or after war heroes (Grove, Varick, Mercer, Wayne, Monmouth and Montgomery among them). John B. Coles, a former
New York State senator (1799–1802), purchased the area north of Paulus Hook known as Harsimus and laid out a grid plan centered around a park. Following Hamilton's death, Coles proposed naming the park in his honor as "
Hamilton Park." Despite Hamilton's
untimely death in July 1804, the Association carried on with the New Jersey Legislature approving Hamilton's charter of incorporation on November 10, 1804. However, the enterprise was mired in a legal boundary dispute between New York City and the state of
New Jersey over who owned the waterfront. This along with the associated press coverage discouraged investors who wanted lots on the waterfront for commercial purposes. The unresolved dispute would continue until the Treaty of 1834 where New York City formally ceded control of the Jersey City waterfront to New Jersey. Over that time though, the Jersey Company opened the city's first medical facility, known as the "
pest house", in 1808 and applied to the
New Jersey Legislature to incorporate the "Town of Jersey" in 1819. The legislature enacted "An Act to incorporate the City of Jersey, in the County of Bergen" on January 28, 1820. Under the provision, five freeholders (including Varick, Dey, and Radcliff) were to be chosen as "the Board of Selectmen of Jersey City", thereby establishing the first governing body of the emerging municipality. The city was reincorporated on January 23, 1829, and again on February 22, 1838, at which time it became completely independent of Bergen and was given its present name. On February 22, 1840, Jersey City became part of the newly created
Hudson County which separated from Bergen County and annexed the former
Essex County land of
New Barbadoes Neck. In 1812,
Robert Fulton began
steam ferry service via
The Jersey between Paulus Hook and Manhattan, eight years after building a
shipyard at Greene and Morgan Streets. In 1834, the
New Jersey Rail Road and Transportation Company opened the city's first rail line from Jersey City Ferry to Newark. From 1834 to 1836, the
Morris Canal was extended from Newark to Jersey City and
New York Harbor linking the Delaware River with the Hudson River. This extension connected Jersey City to
Pennsylvania's
Lehigh Valley and New Jersey's interior providing a steady and easy supply of
coal and
anthracite pig iron for the growing iron industry and other developing industries adopting steam power in Jersey City and the region. The city's location on the Hudson River also allowed it to benefit from the opening of the
Erie Canal in 1825. In 1839,
Provident Savings Institution was charted by the state as the first
mutual savings bank in New Jersey and the first bank in Jersey City and Hudson County. Co-founded by the city's first mayor,
Dudley S. Gregory (1838–1840), in the wake of the
Panic of 1837, there was a general mistrust of banks by the public. In response, the bank's charter established it as a "mutual savings bank" to assist the city's immigrant poor. In 1891, the bank headquarters became the temporary home of the first branch of the
Jersey City Free Public Library until the Main Library branch opened in 1901. On April 12, 1841, the New Jersey Legislature incorporated
Van Vorst Township from portions of Bergen. Land was donated by the Van Vorst family for a town square style park that became
Van Vorst Park. The township was later annexed by Jersey City on March 18, 1851. From 1854 to 1874, the kitchen step of the Van Vorst Mansion, home of former mayor
Cornelius Van Vorst (1860–1862), was known to be the slab of marble that was originally the base of the statue of
King George III that was toppled by the
Sons of Liberty at
Bowling Green in Lower Manhattan in 1776. Van Vorst also constructed the neighboring
Barrow Mansion where his sister Eliza lived. By mid century, Jersey City's rapidly urbanizing population began to encounter significant challenges gaining access to freshwater. In 1850, Jersey City Water Works engineer William S. Whitwell, proposed a three-reservoir complex in the
Jersey City Heights (then part of
North Bergen) connected to a pumping station near the
Passaic River in
Belleville by a massive underground
aqueduct to deliver freshwater to the city. Reservoir No. 1 was built between 1851 and 1854 and
Reservoir No. 3 was built between 1871 and 1874 under the direction of engineer John Culver. Reservoir No. 2 was never constructed and later became
Pershing Field. On May 2, 1867,
The Evening Journal, was first published. The newspaper was founded by U.S. Army Civil War veterans William Dunning and Z. K. Pangborn at
Exchange Place where it would grow and expand into additional buildings. Pangborn went on to serve as the chairman of the 1870 City Charter Commission and was active in city politics. In 1909, editor Joseph A. Dear renamed the paper
The Jersey Journal and in 1911 the paper moved to the neighborhood that would later take its name,
Journal Square. In 1868, the Jersey City Board of Alderman took over the pest house and renamed it "
Jersey City Charity Hospital" and operated it as a public medical facility, the first in the city and state, where physicians provided free medical care to city residents. In 1885, the hospital expanded to a new 200-bed facility on Bergen Hill to remove the hospital from the increasing industrial development at Paulus Hook. They would then be hidden in wagons en route to the Jersey City waterfront and Morris Canal Basin where abolitionists would hire ferry and coal boats to transport former slaves up to
Canada or
New England to freedom. Its estimated that more than 60,000 former slaves traveled through Jersey City including some that decided to stay and make the city their home. In 1831, brothers Thomas and John Vreeland Jackson, who were former slaves freed by the Vreeland family, bought land in what is now Greenville. In 1857, they laid out Jackson Lane (now Winfield Avenue) between their houses, where during the Civil War, their property became an important station on the Underground Railroad. The city's
Jackson Hill neighborhood and Jackson Square are named in their honor.
Consolidation of Jersey City Soon after the Civil War, the idea arose of uniting all of the towns of Hudson County east of the Hackensack River into one municipality. In 1868, a bill for submitting the question of consolidation of all of Hudson County to the voters was presented to the Board of Chosen Freeholders (now known as the
Board of County Commissioners). The bill was approved by the state legislature on April 2, 1869, with a special election to be held on October 5, 1869. An element of the bill provided that only contiguous towns could be consolidated. While a majority of the voters across the county approved the merger, the only municipalities that had approved the consolidation plan and that adjoined Jersey City were
Hudson City and
Bergen City. The consolidation began on March 17, 1870, taking effect on May 3, 1870. Three years later on February 4, 1873, the present outline of Jersey City was completed when
Greenville Township agreed to merge into the Greater Jersey City. Following consolidation, the city's first university,
Saint Peter's College, was charted in 1872 and classes began on September 2, 1878, in Paulus Hook. Decades later, it would adopt the
peacock as its mascot in partial reference to the original settling of the Jersey City area as "Pavonia",
land of the peacock. On October 28, 1886, the
Statue of Liberty was dedicated by
President Grover Cleveland just off the city's shores at
Bedloe's Island in New York Harbor. In the coming decades, the statue would welcome millions of immigrants as they arrived by
ship at
Ellis Island, which opened in 1892. By the late 1880s, three passenger railroad terminals opened in Jersey City along the
Hudson River (
Pavonia Terminal,
Exchange Place and
Communipaw) making Jersey City a terminus for the nation's rail network. The railroads transformed the city's geography by building several
tunnels and cuts, such as the
Bergen Arches, through the city and filling in the coves at Harsimus and Communipaw for the construction of several large freight rail yards along the waterfront. Jersey City became an important port, railroad and manufacturing city during the 19th and 20th centuries. Much like New York City, Jersey City has always been a destination for new immigrants to the United States.
German,
Russian,
Polish,
Scottish,
Irish and
Italian immigrants settled in local
tenements and found work at the local docks, railroads and adjacent companies such as
American Can,
American Sugar,
A&P,
Colgate,
Clorox Co.,
Lorillard Tobacoo and
Dixon Ticonderoga.
20th century By the turn of the 20th century, the
City Beautiful movement had spread throughout cities in the United States. Part of its mission was to preserve public space for recreational activities in urban industrial communities. The
Hudson County Parks Commission was created in 1892 to plan and develop a county wide park and boulevard system similar to those found in other cities. From 1892 to 1897,
Hudson Boulevard (now John F. Kennedy Boulevard) was built to connect the future park system from
Bayonne to
North Bergen through Jersey City. In 1905,
Lincoln Park opened on the city's
West Side as the largest park in Jersey City and the first and largest park in the county system. Designed by Daniel W. Langton and
Charles N. Lowrie, the park was mostly built on undeveloped
wetlands and woodlands known as "Glendale Woods", stretching from the Boulevard to the
Hackensack River. The Jersey City government was also inspired by the City Beautiful movement to build more open space creating
Dr. Leonard J. Gordon Park in the Heights along Hudson Boulevard, Mary Benson Park in Downtown and Bayside Park in Greenville. The movement also inspired the construction of grand civic buildings in the city such as City Hall and the
Hudson County Courthouse. The
Hudson & Manhattan Railroad (now the PATH system) opened between 1908 and 1913 as New Jersey's first underground
rapid transit system. For the first time, Jersey City and the rail terminals at
Hoboken, Pavonia and Exchange Place were directly linked with
Midtown and
Lower Manhattan under the Hudson River, providing an alternative to transferring to the extensive ferry system. In 1910,
William L. Dickinson High School opened as the first purpose-built high school in Jersey City. The design of the school, built during the City Beautiful movement, is thought to have been inspired by that of the
Louvre Colonnade and
Buckingham Palace. The prominent hilltop location of the school has been an important location throughout the city's history. During the
Revolutionary War, it was used as a lookout by General Washington and Marquis de Lafayette to observe British movements at the forts at Paulus Hook and in
Lower Manhattan. After the start of the
War of 1812, the site assisted in defending New York Harbor with an
arsenal built on the property's west side and with the east side serving as a troop campground. During the
Civil War, the arsenal served as barracks for
Union soldiers and a hospital. The school was used as an army training facility during
World War I and
World War II. On July 30, 1916, the
Black Tom explosion occurred killing 7 people, damaging the Statue of Liberty and causing millions of dollars in damage in Jersey City and throughout the New York metropolitan area. The blast was the equivalent of an earthquake measuring between 5.0 and 5.5 on the
Richter scale and was felt as far away as
Maryland. The explosion was an act of sabotage on American
munitions by German spies of the
Office of Naval Intelligence to prevent the ammunition from being shipped to the
Allies for use during World War I. This event, coupled with the
torpedoing of the RMS Lusitania, which killed 136 Americans in 1915, pushed the United States into entering the War in 1917. Hague ran the city with an iron fist while, at the same time, molding governors, United States senators, and judges to his whims while also being a close political ally to
Franklin D. Roosevelt. Boss Hague was known to be loud and vulgar, but dressed in a stylish manner, earning him the nickname "King Hanky-Panky". In his later years in office, Hague would often dismiss his enemies as "
reds" or "
commies". Hague lived like a millionaire, despite having an annual salary that never exceeded $8,500. He was able to maintain a fourteen-room
duplex apartment in Jersey City, a suite at the
Plaza Hotel in Manhattan, and a palatial summer home in the
Jersey Shore community of
Deal, and travel to Europe yearly in the royal suites of the best ocean liners. Hague's time as mayor was also marked by his direct influence in the construction of several important infrastructure, educational, open space, healthcare and public works projects that became functional civic landmarks that define the city to this day. Some of these projects are the construction of
Journal Square and its
theaters, the
Holland Tunnel, the
Wittpenn Bridge, the design of
New Jersey Route 139, the
Pulaski Skyway,
Lincoln High School,
Snyder High School,
A. Harry Moore School,
New Jersey City University, the Heights, Miller and Greenville branches of the
library system,
Pershing Field, Audubon Park, five
public housing complexes,
Harborside Terminal, the Seventh
Police Precinct and Criminal Court, the expansion of
Jersey City Hospital to
Jersey City Medical Center, the
Jersey City Armory and
Roosevelt Stadium. Hague financed several of these projects with
WPA funds secured by
congresswoman Mary Teresa Norton (1925–1951), the first woman elected to represent New Jersey or any state in
the Northeast.
Post-World War II: 1950s–1970s Following World War II, returning veterans created a
post-war economic boom and were beginning to buy homes in the suburbs with the assistance of the
G.I. Bill. During the
Great Depression and the war years, not much new housing was constructed, leaving cities with older and overcrowded housing stock. In response, Jersey City looked to build new housing on undeveloped tracts around the city. College Towers was built on the West Side as the first middle-income
housing cooperative apartment complex in New Jersey in 1956.
Country Village was built in the 1960s as a middle-income "suburbia-in-the-city" planned community in the Greenville/West Side area to offer the "out of town" experience without leaving the city. The city had hoped that new residential neighborhoods and housing stock would keep the city's population stable. In 1951,
Seton Hall University School of Law opened on the site of the former John Marshall Law School at 40 Journal Square and would relocate to Newark by the end of the year. From 1956 to 1968, Jersey City Medical Center was the home of the
Seton Hall College of Medicine and Dentistry, the predecessor to the
University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ), which would relocate to Newark in 1969. In 1956, the
Newark Bay (Hudson County) Extension Interstate 78 of the New Jersey Turnpike opened. As the first
limited-access section of Interstate 78 to be built in the state, the extension connected Jersey City and the Holland Tunnel to the mainline of the Turnpike in Newark via the
Newark Bay Bridge and at an estimated cost of $2,765 per foot, it was deemed the "world's most expensive road". That same year, the standard shipping container
debuted along with the maiden voyage of the
container ship SS Ideal X from
Port Newark to the
Port of Houston. These innovations changed forever the way the
maritime industry shipped goods by sea and led to the transformation of Port Newark into the leading container port in New York Harbor. As a result, the Jersey City waterfront, along with the other traditional waterfront port facilities in the harbor at
Hoboken, Manhattan and
Brooklyn, quickly became antiquated and fell into a steep decline. Additionally, by the late 1960s, the rail terminals and associated ferry service that were so vital to the city's economic health had closed and were later abandoned after the host railroads declared bankruptcy. From August 2 to 5 1964,
race riots occurred in the predominantly
African American neighborhood of
Lafayette in the
Bergen-Lafaytte section of the city. The
riots began on August 2 when a young black woman, Delores Shannon, was arrested for disorderly conduct and Arthur Mays, brother of future
Olympian, city councilman and state assemblyman,
Charles Mays, was arrested for intervening at the Lafayette Gardens public housing complex. Clashes between police and black residents occurred over the next three days. On August 3, mayor Thomas J. Whelan met with local leaders and clergymen and the leadership of the
Congress of Racial Equality and the
NAACP to discuss how to address the inequities in the African American community and how to end the civil unrest. By the end of the riots on August 5, at least 46 people had been injured, 52 people were arrested and 71 stores and businesses were damaged. By the 1970s, Jersey City was in a period of urban decline spurred on by
deindustrialization. Many of its former industrial anchors relocated or declared bankruptcy which led many of the city's wealthy residents to
leave for the suburbs due to rising crime, civil unrest, political corruption, and economic hardship. From 1950 to 1980, Jersey City lost 75,000 residents, and from 1975 to 1982, the city lost 5,000 jobs, or 9% of its workforce. In 1974,
Hudson County Community College was established in
Journal Square as one of two "contract" colleges in the United States and the first contract college in New Jersey to grant students occupational and career-oriented certificates and Associates in Applied Science degrees. Since then, the college has grown throughout the Journal Square and
Bergen Square neighborhoods. On Feb. 19, 1974, the city council voted 8–1 to repeal a 40-year-old law that banned women from drinking at bars and working as bartenders. It was signed into law in 1934 by mayor Frank Hague when the end of
Prohibition led to new alcohol regulations. The law stated that "no women to be served in a barroom" and "no female bartenders." Jersey City councilwoman Lois Shaw launched the movement for repeal when she and a group of women ordered a round of drinks to "
liberate" the Majestic Tavern across the street from City Hall. On
Flag Day 1976,
Liberty State Park opened on New York Harbor to coincide with the nation's
bicentennial. At with a two-mile waterfront walkway, it is the largest park in Jersey City and the largest urban park in New Jersey. The park was built on the site of the former railyards of the
Central Railroad of New Jersey and
Lehigh Valley Railroad. The idea for the park dated back to the late 1950s and its creation was advocated for and spearheaded by several Jersey City residents: Audrey Zapp, Theodore Conrad, Morris Pesin and
J. Owen Grundy. Jersey City donated of land to the development of the park through their advocacy. The
Liberty Science Center opened in the park in 1993.
Late 20th and early 21st centuries Beginning in the 1980s, the restoration of
brownstones in neighborhoods such as
Paulus Hook,
Van Vorst Park,
Hamilton Park,
Harsimus Cove and
Bergen Hill, along with artists moving into former warehouses in the
Powerhouse Arts District and the development of the waterfront previously occupied by railyards, factories and warehouses helped to stir the beginnings of an economic renaissance for Jersey City. From 1995 to 2003, Jersey City led the 100 largest cities in the United States in job growth and
poverty reduction. The rapid construction of numerous high-rise buildings, such as the
mixed-use community of
Newport, increased the population and led to the development of the
Exchange Place financial district, also known as "
Wall Street West", one of the largest
financial centers in the United States. Financial institutions such as
UBS,
Goldman Sachs,
Chase Bank,
Citibank, and
Merrill Lynch occupy prominent buildings on the Jersey City waterfront, some of which are among the
tallest buildings in New Jersey. With of office space as of 2011, Jersey City has the nation's 12th-largest
downtown and the state's largest office market. Since 1988, the
New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection has mandated by law that developers building along the waterfront in Hudson County preserve and develop the
Hudson River Waterfront Walkway to provide the public with access and recreation by creating a linear park along the Hudson River. The walkway through Jersey City is substantially complete and runs from Hoboken Terminal through Liberty State Park to
Port Liberté. Simultaneous to this building boom, new transit projects were prioritized. By the late 1980s, trans-Hudson ferry service was restored along the waterfront by
NY Waterway with ferry terminals now at
Paulus Hook,
Liberty Harbor and Port Liberté. From 1996 to 2011,
NJ Transit constructed the
Hudson-Bergen Light Rail as one of the largest
public works projects in state history. The system was developed and extended throughout the city and its Downtown utilizing the former right-of-ways of the railroads that defined the city and county during the 19th and early 20th centuries. The system links Jersey City with its neighboring cities while connecting to several
NJ Transit bus lines,
PATH stations and ferry terminals.
September 11, 2001 honors the JCFD. Jersey City was directly affected by the
September 11, 2001 attacks at the
World Trade Center where 38 city residents lost their lives. One of the 38 victims was Joseph Lovero, a
Jersey City Fire Department dispatcher, who was killed by a piece of falling debris while responding. The Jersey City Fire Department was the only New Jersey fire department to receive an official call for assistance from the
FDNY. Following the attacks, the Jersey City waterfront became the largest triage center in the area for survivors escaping Lower Manhattan by ferry during the "
9/11 Boatlift". In the days and weeks after, Jersey City became a staging area for rescue and aid workers headed to "
Ground Zero" for rescue and recovery efforts. The collapse of the
Twin Towers destroyed the
World Trade Center PATH station and the firefighting efforts flooded the
Downtown Hudson River tunnels and the
Exchange Place PATH station severing the
rail connection between Jersey City and Lower Manhattan until 2003. Over the years several memorials have been erected along the waterfront including the
Jersey City 9/11 Memorial and the official New Jersey state memorial
Empty Sky. On November 19, 2015, while
campaigning for president in
Birmingham, Alabama,
Donald Trump falsely claimed a
conspiracy theory that he witnessed "thousands of people" celebrating the attacks in Jersey City on television. Trump continued to repeat the conspiracy theory to multiple news outlets for weeks, later adding that the people were
Muslims, despite no confirmed reports, evidence or footage from that time being found to confirm his repeated falsehood. In response, the Jersey City council proposed a measure to persuade the condo association at
Trump Plaza Jersey City to remove Trump's name off of the building marquee. Both Trump Plaza and
Trump Bay Street were later renamed in 2020.
2010s–present In August 2011, several areas of Downtown Jersey City and the waterfront were
affected by Hurricane Irene causing severe flooding from the associated
storm surge. Over a year later, Jersey City was heavily
impacted by Hurricane Sandy in October 2012 with extended power outages for multiple days, severe wind damage in several neighborhoods and extensive storm surge flooding throughout the city especially in Downtown, the Country Village neighborhood, the
West Side and
Liberty State Park. The flooding damaged the city's utility infrastructure and led to a days long shutdown of the PATH system, both of its
Hudson River tunnels and the
Holland Tunnel. For weeks after, the
Jersey City Armory served as an emergency shelter for hundreds of displaced city residents. Prior to the storm, homeless individuals went to the armory for refuge. The
108th Wing of the
New Jersey Air National Guard from
Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst provided services such as sleeping cots, shower locations, food and security. In October 2013, City Ordinance 13.097 passed requiring employers with ten or more employees to offer up to five
paid sick days a year. The bill impacts an estimated 30,000 workers at all businesses who employ workers who work at least 80 hours a calendar year in Jersey City. The passage of the ordinance made Jersey City the first municipality in New Jersey and the sixth in the United States to guarantee paid sick leave. In 2014, Jersey City's Census-estimated population was 262,146, with the largest population increase of any municipality in New Jersey since 2010, representing an increase of 5.9% from the
2010 U.S. census, when the city's population was 247,597. In 2016, Jersey City raised the minimum wage for its municipal employees to US
$15 per hour, double the previous rate, becoming the first municipality in New Jersey to do so. The city's new minimum wage made it several dollars higher than the State ($12 per hour) and Federal ($11 per hour) minimum wages. In 2021, the city raised the minimum wage further to $17 per hour and again in 2022 to $20 per hour. From 2018 to 2023, Jersey City built a new municipal complex called
Jackson Square in the
Jackson Hill section of the
Bergen-Lafayette neighborhood. Planned since 2014, the city had previously rented office space throughout the city for its multiple agencies. The complex is made up of a City Hall Annex for several agencies, parking garage and public safety headquarters for the Jersey City Police and Fire Departments. The shooting was part of a
wave of violent attacks against Jews in the United States in 2019.
COVID-19 pandemic On March 13, 2020, the first case of
COVID-19 was confirmed in Jersey City. The day before, Jersey City was the first city in the state to implement mandatory restrictions to curb the spread of the virus. These restrictions included a nightly curfew on city bars and restaurants and the cancellation of all public meetings, non-essential city-sponsored events and private events held on city property. With its population density and connections to
New York City, by early April, Jersey City became the state epicenter for the virus having more cases than any other municipality in New Jersey. Through March 2023, Jersey City recorded 320 deaths, or 120.5 people for every 100,000 residents, from COVID-19 related complications. In April 2023,
Jersey City Medical Center dedicated a public serenity garden and
stained glass artwork titled
Healing and Hope to honor the hospital's COVID-19 emergency response, front line workers and those who died from the pandemic. ==Geography==