jamesdeluxe
Well-known member
- Joined
- Jul 17, 2020
Following my successful pilgrimage to vintage pinball heaven a few weeks ago, the past week's fare holiday on all New Jersey Transit trains, light rail, and buses provided a good reason to go on another geek excursion that I'd put off for way too long: the defunct but preserved train terminal in Jersey City -- in operation for more than 100 years, from 1864 to 1967 -- that served as the gateway to the late lamented Central Railroad of New Jersey (CRRNJ).
To get there, I took a commuter train past the iconic Pulaski Skyway -- seen in many Sopranos episodes and where I played a memorable round of golf alongside it four years ago:
My initial stop was at Hoboken's majestic Lackawanna train terminal. From 2014 to 2019, I commuted every day through here and connected to a 15-minute ferry ride to my office at the bottom of Manhattan.
The stunning waiting room with stained-glass ceiling:
I then took a 12-minute ride on the light rail through Jersey City to the Liberty State Park stop:
About a mile away is the stately CRRNJ terminal, located on a piece of land along the Hudson River known to the indigenous Lenape tribe as "Communipaw" -- seen here from the ferry:
The original train station opened in 1864; however, increasing demand required a new terminal so it was replaced by the existing structure in 1889. A close-up of the station facing the river with Jersey City office buildings behind it:
With the opening of the immigration complex on Ellis Island just across the river in 1892, usage exploded and the station became the main transfer point for newly processed immigrants. Of the 17 million people who went through Ellis Island between 1892 and 1954, approx. 10.5 million entered the U.S. mainland at this train station to settle in New Jersey or other points throughout the country.
Several members of my family from southern Italy did exactly that in the late 1890s -- arrived on the boat, stayed with relatives in West New York, NJ, and then moved north to the large Italian community in Cortland NY, where my great grandmother Vittoria lived 70+ years with only a few words of English.
Departure/arrival docks for ferries to Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty with lower Manhattan in the background:
Alongside the station is a 9/11 sculpture:
There's also a 9/11 memorial with the victims listed on the inside. The parking lot here was a major triage area for ferries transporting injured people from the collapsed WTC towers:
Finally, it was time to visit the train station through the copper green enclosure.
Here's the main corridor between the building and the platforms, which was renovated along with the main building a while back. At the far end was for many decades a separate ferry shed where immigrants would wait for their trains -- designed so they wouldn't cause a traffic jam with the thousands of commuters who used the terminal for daily travel to their jobs to New York City.
I read that at its peak in 1929, an estimated 21 million passengers passed through the station and ferry terminal; however, a combination of the Depression, competitor railroads, and finally the popularity of cars and jet travel caused passenger numbers to decline over the following decades.
By 1914, the train shed was enlarged to accommodate ever growing numbers of passengers. The 20-track shed is still standing but beginning to fall apart. All of the track indicators are still there and include signage with the various routes that departed the station:
I have no idea what all those drawers at the bottom of each tower were used for -- to hold tickets, keys, schedules, or documents?
None of these routes are served by New Jersey Transit's commuter lines so it's kind of fascinating to see all these station stops that are no longer in use.
Track 10 is a tribute to what's remembered by rail geeks as the most well-known part of the CNJRR's passenger service, the Blue Comet, which operated between the terminal and Atlantic City. Designed to provide coach passengers with brand new equipment, reserved seating, and deluxe service at a regular coach fare, it went into service in 1929 and was initially a big success, but fell victim to the Great Depression and competition with its main competitor, the Pennsylvania Railroad. Service was reduced to a single daily round-trip by April 1933 and the route was ended by 1941. Sopranos fans may recall how Bobby Bacala went into a hobby shop to purchase a vintage model-railroad version of the train (for $8,000!), where he met his demise.
As a before/after look -- here's a 1955 air shot of the station.
And this is what it currently looks like in the industrial area marked with red in the pic above: verdant park space
Reverse shot:
To get there, I took a commuter train past the iconic Pulaski Skyway -- seen in many Sopranos episodes and where I played a memorable round of golf alongside it four years ago:
My initial stop was at Hoboken's majestic Lackawanna train terminal. From 2014 to 2019, I commuted every day through here and connected to a 15-minute ferry ride to my office at the bottom of Manhattan.
The stunning waiting room with stained-glass ceiling:
I then took a 12-minute ride on the light rail through Jersey City to the Liberty State Park stop:
About a mile away is the stately CRRNJ terminal, located on a piece of land along the Hudson River known to the indigenous Lenape tribe as "Communipaw" -- seen here from the ferry:
The original train station opened in 1864; however, increasing demand required a new terminal so it was replaced by the existing structure in 1889. A close-up of the station facing the river with Jersey City office buildings behind it:
With the opening of the immigration complex on Ellis Island just across the river in 1892, usage exploded and the station became the main transfer point for newly processed immigrants. Of the 17 million people who went through Ellis Island between 1892 and 1954, approx. 10.5 million entered the U.S. mainland at this train station to settle in New Jersey or other points throughout the country.
Several members of my family from southern Italy did exactly that in the late 1890s -- arrived on the boat, stayed with relatives in West New York, NJ, and then moved north to the large Italian community in Cortland NY, where my great grandmother Vittoria lived 70+ years with only a few words of English.
Departure/arrival docks for ferries to Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty with lower Manhattan in the background:
Alongside the station is a 9/11 sculpture:
There's also a 9/11 memorial with the victims listed on the inside. The parking lot here was a major triage area for ferries transporting injured people from the collapsed WTC towers:
Finally, it was time to visit the train station through the copper green enclosure.
Here's the main corridor between the building and the platforms, which was renovated along with the main building a while back. At the far end was for many decades a separate ferry shed where immigrants would wait for their trains -- designed so they wouldn't cause a traffic jam with the thousands of commuters who used the terminal for daily travel to their jobs to New York City.
I read that at its peak in 1929, an estimated 21 million passengers passed through the station and ferry terminal; however, a combination of the Depression, competitor railroads, and finally the popularity of cars and jet travel caused passenger numbers to decline over the following decades.
By 1914, the train shed was enlarged to accommodate ever growing numbers of passengers. The 20-track shed is still standing but beginning to fall apart. All of the track indicators are still there and include signage with the various routes that departed the station:
I have no idea what all those drawers at the bottom of each tower were used for -- to hold tickets, keys, schedules, or documents?
None of these routes are served by New Jersey Transit's commuter lines so it's kind of fascinating to see all these station stops that are no longer in use.
Track 10 is a tribute to what's remembered by rail geeks as the most well-known part of the CNJRR's passenger service, the Blue Comet, which operated between the terminal and Atlantic City. Designed to provide coach passengers with brand new equipment, reserved seating, and deluxe service at a regular coach fare, it went into service in 1929 and was initially a big success, but fell victim to the Great Depression and competition with its main competitor, the Pennsylvania Railroad. Service was reduced to a single daily round-trip by April 1933 and the route was ended by 1941. Sopranos fans may recall how Bobby Bacala went into a hobby shop to purchase a vintage model-railroad version of the train (for $8,000!), where he met his demise.
As a before/after look -- here's a 1955 air shot of the station.
And this is what it currently looks like in the industrial area marked with red in the pic above: verdant park space
Reverse shot:
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