Harsimus (also known as Harsimus Cove) is a neighborhood within Downtown Jersey City. The neighborhood stretches from the Harsimus Stem Embankment (the Sixth Street Embankment) in the north to Columbus Avenue in the south between Monmouth Street and Grove Street[1] or more broadly, to Marin Boulevard. It borders the neighborhoods of Hamilton Park to the north, Van Vorst Park to the south, the Village to the east, and the Waterfront to the west. Newark Avenue has traditionally been its main street.[2]The name is from the Lenape, used by the Hackensack Indians who inhabited the region and could be translated as Crow’s Marsh.[3] From many years, the neighborhood was part of the “Horseshoe”, a poltical delineation created by it’s position between the converging rail lines and political gerrymandering [1].
Contents |
Early settlement
In 1629 the Dutchman Michael Reyniersz Pauw obtained a patent for all the land in what would become Hudson County, naming it Pavonia. Unable to fulfill a patroon charter provision that he set up a plantation with fifty permanent settlers the Dutch West India Company sold a part to his superintendent, who had built a homestead in 1634 and was the first of many Van Vorsts to play important roles in the development of the city. A family homestead built in 1647 was demolished in 1967,[4]Conflict with Native Americans compromised the settlement 1643, which continued to grow after the 1645 treaty ending Kieft's War. Again in 1655, the area was attacked in a conflict called the Peach Tree War. In 1660, it came under the jurisdiction of Bergen, New Netherland the main village of which was located at Bergen Square.[5]
Once the area was ceded to the Britsh after the surrender of Fort Amsterdam, New York claimed ownership to the high waterline along the west bank of the Hudson River and that any pier built there was under its jurisdiction, thus stifling development which would compete with the burgeoning New York City. Paulus Hook was the first to urbanize, and The City of Jersey was incorporated in various forms in 1820, 1829, and again in 1838.[6] John Coles, a merchant from New York, was among the first to expand into Harsimus. [7]The Supreme Court settled the matter of jurisdictionin the 1830s, creating a border mid-river. Harsimus grew with shipping along shoreline and residences farther inland.[8] The short-lived Van Vorst Township later merged with its neighbor. Much of housing stock from the maritime era is still intact. Many of the streets in the gridiron lain at the time have been renamed over the years. Moving away from the river they were originally called Hudson, River, Kelso, and Barnum. Provost and others to the west have stayed the same. [9]
Rise of the railroad and Hague
Harsimus was transformed by the development of the railroad industry.[10] By 1860 much of the cove was land-filled for the development of railyards, extending a quarter mile from Henderson Street. Three elevated right of ways were built: one from the Bergen Arches to the Erie Railroad Pavonia Terminal[11], the Harsimus Stem Embankment[12][13] at 6th Street for the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR), and another for its Jersey City Branch along Railroad Avenue (now Columbus Drive) to Exchange Place. The embankments and elevated lines separated adjoining neighborhoods. A small slip was created and still is called Harsimus Cove.
Harsimus' isolation was codified with gerrymandering, forming a horseshoe and creating a new nickname. The community consisted of Catholic immigrants, many of them Irish, who worked on the railroad. Infuxes of Ellis Island immigrants swelled the population. A vestige of the Slavic character of the area remains at the Ukrainian National Home. To diminish the Democratic power base, Republican power brokers redrew the voting district to consist solely of the Horseshoe so that they may protect other seats from Democratic threat. In the 1910s the Horseshoe power base produced the infamous Mayor Frank Hague who dominated the Hudson County political machine and influenced city, county, state, and federal politics for most of the first half of the 20th century. In 1941 a large fire struck the Horsehoe waterfront.[14]
Post industrial era
As traditional shipping and rail transport become obsolete, the area went into decline, and by the 1970s the waterfront was more or less abandoned. Urban renewal projects led to what was called slum clearance of tenements along Grove Street (a section of which was re-named Manila Avenue in recognition of the city's resident Overseas Filipino), Henderson Street (renamed Marin Boulevard for the first governor of Puerto Rico Luis Muñoz Marín), and Railroad Avenue (now Columbus Drive) replaced by subsidized or low cost owner-occupied housing. The 19th century blocks, indivually owned and still solid, were not demolished. Real estate speculation, a preservation movement, and the search for refuge from high rents led to gentrification in late 1970s and early 1980s first in Van Vorst Park, Paulus Hook and Hamilton Park and later in Harsimus. Parts of each neighborhood were designated historic districts, Harsimus Cove in 1987.[15]
The Lefrak Organization obtained title to most of the disused rail beds and began the development of Newport, centered around the Port Authority Trans Hudson (PATH) Pavonia Newport Station. North of the embankment a massive parking deck was constructed, while to the south big box stores went up, separating the older neighborhoods from waterfront. Harborside Financial Center was converted from it maritime use to an office center. The first segment of the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail opened in 2002, including the Harsimus Cove Station nearby the landmark Hudson and Manhattan Railroad Powerhouse. Zoning in the form of WALDO (or Work and Live District Overlay) were unsuccessful in preserving and stimulating the creation of an arts district within the area where large warehouses still remained, and have given way the Powerhouse Arts District and the construction of residential highrises.
See also
| New Netherland series | |
|---|---|
| Exploration | |
| Fortifications: | |
| Settlements: | |
| The Patroon System |
|
| Directors of New Netherland: Cornelius Jacobsen Mey (1620-25) |
|
| People of New Netherland New Netherlander |
|
| Flushing Remonstrance |
|
 |
|
- Communipaw
- Harsimus Branch
- Horseshoe, Jersey City
- Jersey City and Harsimus Cemetery
- List of Registered Historic Places in Hudson County, New Jersey
- Historic Districts in Hudson County, New Jersey
- New Netherland settlements
- Van Vorst Township
References
- ^ http://www.harsimuscove.org/History2.html
- ^ JC Shopping Districts
- ^ Lenape talking dictionary
- ^ Van Vorst House
- ^ *Harsimus Cove history]
- ^ "The Story of New Jersey's Civil Boundaries: 1606-1968", John P. Snyder, Bureau of Geology and Topography; Trenton, New Jersey; 1969. p. 146-147.
- ^ *Hamilton Park History
- ^ Harsimus Cove history
- ^ Hopkins, G.M. Combined Atlas of the State of New Jersey and the County of Hudson, 1873
- ^ <short history of Harsimus Cove
- ^ Jersey City Past and Present: Erie Railroad Terminal
- ^ The Harsimus Stem Embankment
- ^ JC Landmarks: Harsimus Stem Embankmentl
- ^ 1941 Horsehoe Fire photo
- ^ Historic district map
External links
|
||||||||||||||||||||
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
