The Central Railroad of New Jersey Terminal, also known as Communipaw Terminal and Jersey City Terminal, was the

Central Railroad of New Jersey The Central Railroad of New Jersey, also known as the Jersey Central or Jersey Central Lines , was a Class I railroad with origins in the 1830s. It was absorbed into Conrail in April 1976 along with several other prominent bankrupt railroads of ...

's waterfront passenger terminal in Jersey City, New Jersey. The terminal was built in 1889, replacing an earlier one that had been in use since 1864. It operated until April 30, 1967. It also serviced the Central Railroad of New Jersey-operated

Reading Railroad The Reading Company ( ) was a Philadelphia-headquartered railroad that provided passenger and commercial rail transport in eastern Pennsylvania and neighboring states that operated from 1924 until its 1976 acquisition by Conrail. Commonly cal ...

, the

Baltimore and Ohio Railroad The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was the first common carrier railroad and the oldest railroad in the United States, with its first section opening in 1830. Merchants from Baltimore, which had benefited to some extent from the construction of ...

, and the

Lehigh Valley Railroad The Lehigh Valley Railroad was a railroad built in the Northeastern United States to haul anthracite coal from the Coal Region in Pennsylvania. The railroad was authorized on April 21, 1846 for freight and transportation of passengers, goods, ...

during various periods in its 78 years of operation. The terminal was one of five passenger railroad terminals that lined the

Hudson Waterfront 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 contigu ...

during the 19th and 20th centuries, the others being

Weehawken Weehawken is a township in the northern part of Hudson County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It is located largely on the Hudson Palisades overlooking the Hudson River. As of the 2020 United States census, the population was 17,197.

Hoboken Hoboken ( ; Unami: ') is a city in Hudson County in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the city's population was 60,417. The Census Bureau's Population Estimates Program calculated that the city's population was 58,690 ...

, Pavonia and Exchange Place, with Hoboken being the only station that is still in use, as of 2021. The headhouse was renovated and incorporated into

Liberty State Park Liberty State Park (LSP) is a park in the U.S. state of New Jersey, located on Upper New York Bay in Jersey City opposite Liberty Island and Ellis Island. The park opened in 1976 to coincide with bicentennial celebrations and is operated and m ...

. The station has been listed on the

New Jersey Register of Historic Places The New Jersey Register of Historic Places is the official list of historic resources of local, state, and national interest in the U.S. state of New Jersey. The program is administered by the New Jersey's state historic preservation office withi ...

and

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artist ...

since September 12, 1975. Additionally it is a New Jersey State Historic Site.

Description

The terminal is part of

, and along with nearby

Ellis Island Ellis Island is a federally owned island in New York Harbor, situated within the U.S. states of New York and New Jersey, that was the busiest immigrant inspection and processing station in the United States. From 1892 to 1954, nearly 12 m ...

and Statue of Liberty recalls the era of massive immigration through the

Port of New York and New Jersey The Port of New York and New Jersey is the port district of the New York-Newark metropolitan area, encompassing the region within approximately a radius of the Statue of Liberty National Monument. It includes the system of navigable wate ...

. It is estimated that around 10.5 million entered the country through the station. The area has long been known as

Communipaw Communipaw is a neighborhood in Jersey City in Hudson County, New Jersey, United States. It is located west of Liberty State Park and east of Bergen Hill, and the site of one of the earliest European settlements in North America. It gives its nam ...

, which in the

Lenape The Lenape (, , or Lenape , del, Lënapeyok) also called the Leni Lenape, Lenni Lenape and Delaware people, are an indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands, who live in the United States and Canada. Their historical territory inclu ...

language means ''big landing place at the side of a river''. The first stop west of the station was indeed called Communipaw, and was not far from the village that had been established there in 1634 as part of the

New Netherland New Netherland ( nl, Nieuw Nederland; la, Novum Belgium or ) was a 17th-century colonial province of the Dutch Republic that was located on the east coast of what is now the United States. The claimed territories extended from the Delmarva ...

settlement of Pavonia. The land on which the extensive yards were built was reclaimed, or filled. The terminal itself is next to the

Morris Canal The Morris Canal (1829–1924) was a common carrier anthracite coal canal across northern New Jersey that connected the two industrial canals at Easton, Pennsylvania across the Delaware River from its western terminus at Phillipsburg, New Je ...

Big Basin, which to some degree was made obsolete by the railroads which replaced it. The long cobbled road which ends at the terminal (once called Johnston Avenue for a president of CNJ) is named Audrey Zapp Drive, after the environmentalist active in the creation of the park. The main building is designed in a

Richardsonian Romanesque Richardsonian Romanesque is a style of Romanesque Revival architecture named after the American architect Henry Hobson Richardson (1838–1886). The revival style incorporates 11th and 12th century southern French, Spanish, and Italian Romanesq ...

style. The intermodal facility contains more than a dozen platforms and several ferry slips. Arriving passengers would walk to the

railhead In the UK, railheading refers to the practice of travelling further than necessary to reach a rail service, typically by car. The phenomenon is common among commuters seeking a more convenient journey. Reasons for railheading include, but are ...

concourse and could either pass through its main waiting room, by-pass it on either side, and take stairs to the upper level. The

ferry slip A ferry slip is a specialized docking facility that receives a ferryboat or train ferry. A similar structure called a barge slip receives a barge or car float that is used to carry wheeled vehicles across a body of water. Often a ferry inte ...

s have also been restored though the structure which housed them has been removed, as have the tracks. The Bush-type trainsheds, the largest ever to be constructed and designed by A. Lincoln Bush, were not part of the original construction, but were built in 1914 and have not been restored. The abandoned shed covered 12 platforms and 20 tracks.

Service

Trackage

The terminal, along with its docks and yards, was one of several massive terminal complexes (the other being the terminals of the Pennsylvania Railroad in Exchange Place, the Erie Railroad Terminal in Pavonia, the Lackawanna Railroad Terminal in Hoboken, and the West Shore Railroad Terminal in Weehawken) that dominated the western waterfront of the New York Harbor from the mid 19th to the mid 20th century. Of the two still standing, the

Hoboken Terminal Hoboken Terminal is a commuter-oriented intermodal passenger station in Hoboken, Hudson County, New Jersey. One of the New York metropolitan area's major transportation hubs, it is served by nine NJ Transit (NJT) commuter rail lines, one ...

(the former Lackwanna Railroad Terminal) is the only one still in use. Lines from the station headed to the southwest. Arriving at the waterfront from the points required overcoming significant natural obstacles including crossing the

Hackensack River The Hackensack River is a river, approximately 45 miles (72 km) long, in the U.S. states of New York and New Jersey, emptying into Newark Bay, a back chamber of New York Harbor. The watershed of the river includes part of the suburba ...

and

Meadows A meadow ( ) is an open habitat, or field, vegetated by grasses, herbs, and other non-woody plants. Trees or shrubs may sparsely populate meadows, as long as these areas maintain an open character. Meadows may be naturally occurring or artifici ...

and

Hudson Palisades The Palisades, also called the New Jersey Palisades or the Hudson River Palisades, are a line of steep cliffs along the west side of the lower Hudson River in Northeastern New Jersey and Southeastern New York in the United States. The cliffs s ...

, and in the case of New Jersey Central, traversing the

Newark Bay Newark Bay is a tidal bay at the confluence of the Passaic and Hackensack Rivers in northeastern New Jersey. It is home to the Port Newark-Elizabeth Marine Terminal, the largest container shipping facility in Port of New York and New Jer ...

. For its mainline, the railroad constructed the Newark Bay Bridge to Elizabeth. Its

Newark and New York Branch Newark most commonly refers to: * Newark, New Jersey, city in the United States * Newark Liberty International Airport, New Jersey; a major air hub in the New York metropolitan area Newark may also refer to: Places Canada * Niagara-on-th ...

cut through

Bergen Hill 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. Rail ...

and crossed two bridges at Kearny Point. Both rights-of-way in

Hudson County Hudson County is the most densely populated county in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It lies west of the lower Hudson River, which was named for Henry Hudson, the sea captain who explored the area in 1609. Part of New Jersey's Gateway Region in ...

are now used by the Hudson Bergen Light Rail, one terminating at West Side Avenue and the other at 8th Street station in

Bayonne Bayonne (; eu, Baiona ; oc, label= Gascon, Baiona ; es, Bayona) is a city in Southwestern France near the Spanish border. It is a commune and one of two subprefectures in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department, in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine ...

Ferries and ships

The Communipaw ferry constituted the main ferry route from the terminal and was operated by four ferries that crossed the North River to Liberty Street Ferry Terminal in lower

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five Boroughs of New York City, boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the List of co ...

. Additional service to 23rd Street was also operated until the CRNJ went bankrupt in 1945 and scrapped its ferry boats used on the 23rd street route in 1947. In the early 1900s the B&O Railroad requested the CRNJ operate ferries for its luxury Royal Blue service passengers to

Whitehall Terminal The Whitehall Terminal is a ferry terminal in the South Ferry section of Lower Manhattan, New York City, at the corner of South Street and Whitehall Street. It is used by the Staten Island Ferry, which connects the island boroughs of Manhatta ...

and this was accomplished for several years until the City of New York purchased the

Staten Island Ferry The Staten Island Ferry is a passenger ferry route operated by the New York City Department of Transportation. The ferry's single route runs through New York Harbor between the New York City boroughs of Manhattan and Staten Island, with ferr ...

from the B&O's subsidiary, the

Staten Island Railway The Staten Island Railway (SIR) is a rapid transit line in the New York City borough of Staten Island. It is owned by the Staten Island Rapid Transit Operating Authority (SIRTOA), a subsidiary of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, and ...

, and ended the service in 1905. Until the opening of the Verrazano Narrows Bridge there was also service to

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. Kings County is the most populous Administrative divisions of New York (state)#County, county in the State of New York, ...

and

Staten Island Staten Island ( ) is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Richmond County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located in the city's southwest portion, the borough is separated from New Jersey by the Arthur Kill and the Kill Van Kull an ...

Other boats, among them the and , which travelled to the

Raritan Bayshore The Raritan Bayshore region of New Jersey is a subregion of the larger Jersey Shore. It is the area around Raritan Bay from The Amboys to Sandy Hook, in Monmouth and Middlesex counties, including the towns of Woodbridge, Perth Amboy, South Ambo ...

. In 1941, the CRRNJ ferryboat fleet made 374 one-way crossings of the North River each day.

Railroad lines

Jersey Central's

Blue Comet The ''Blue Comet'' was a named passenger train operated by Central Railroad of New Jersey from 1929 to 1941 between the New York metropolitan area and Atlantic City. Designed by Central Railroad of New Jersey (CNJ) president R.B. White in 19 ...

offered elaborate service to Atlantic City. The railroad's suburban trains served passengers to west and south, including the

Jersey Shore The Jersey Shore (known by locals simply as the Shore) is the coastal region of the U.S. state of New Jersey. Geographically, the term encompasses about of oceanfront bordering the Atlantic Ocean, from Perth Amboy in the north to Cape May P ...

. CNJ's long-distance service into

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; (Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, Ma ...

ran to Harrisburg, Scranton, and

Mauch Chunk Jim Thorpe is a borough and the county seat of Carbon County in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. It is part of Northeastern Pennsylvania. It is historically known as the burial site of Native American sports legend Jim Thorpe. Jim Thorpe is lo ...

. The

Reading Company The Reading Company ( ) was a Philadelphia-headquartered railroad that provided passenger and commercial rail transport in eastern Pennsylvania and neighboring states that operated from 1924 until its 1976 acquisition by Conrail. Commonly calle ...

used the terminal for its '' Crusader'' and ''Wall Street'' trains. The

(B&O), whose ''

Royal Blue Royal blue is a deep and vivid shade of blue. It is said to have been created by clothiers in Rode, Somerset, a consortium of whom won a competition to make a dress for Queen Charlotte, consort of King George III. Brightness The ''Oxford ...

'' was a premier passenger train to

Washington, DC ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

, also had trains to Chicago and St. Louis. In April 1967 the opening of the Aldene Connection led to the end of passenger service to the station and the diverting of all remaining passenger trains to Penn Station in Newark. Since then,

has served as the main commuter rail station for Jersey City as well; it straddles the Jersey City/Hoboken line. The timetable of 27 September 1936 shows 132 weekday departures, including 25 to CNJ's Broad St. Newark station, 25 that ran south from Elizabethport (two to Chrome and the rest to the NY&LB) and 19 Reading and B&O trains that turned southwest at Bound Brook Junction. Three trains ran to Mauch Chunk and two to Harrisburg via Allentown; the other 58 trains terminated along the main line between West 8th St in Bayonne and Hampton.

Named passenger trains

Until April 1958 several long-distance trains originated at the station, and trains to Philadelphia lasted until 1967. * With the closing of Baltimore & Ohio passenger service north of Baltimore in 1958 the ''Royal Blue'' was abandoned and the ''Capitol Limited'', ''Metropolitan Special'' and ''National Limited'' were terminated east of Baltimore.

Post-railroad service uses

Following the Aldene Connection's opening in 1967, the terminal sat unused but maintained and guarded by the Central Railroad of New Jersey. When CNJ shops and engine facilities nearby closed in the early 1970s, the terminal sat abandoned. A portion of the 1968 movie '' Funny Girl'' was filmed at the terminal. Numerous fairs, concerts, and other sponsored events (among them the Central Jersey Heritage Festival and the All Points West Music & Arts Festival) take place at the station and its grounds. It is a very popular place from which to view July 4 fireworks. In the aftermath of the

September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commerc ...

, its parking lot was the staging area for dozens of ambulances that were mobilized to transport victims of the attacks. Ferries to the Statue of Liberty National Monument,

, and

Liberty Island Liberty Island is a federally owned island in Upper New York Bay in the United States. Its most notable feature is the Statue of Liberty (''Liberty Enlightening the World''), a large statue by Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi that was dedicated in ...

depart daily. No public transport options exist between the terminal and Hudson Bergen Light Rail's

Liberty State Park Station Liberty State Park is a station on the Hudson–Bergen Light Rail (HBLR) located between Communipaw and Johnston Avenues in Jersey City, New Jersey. The station opened on April 15, 2000. There are two tracks and two side platforms. Northbound s ...

. In 2009 Rutgers University students proposed building a trolley line to the terminal building and other points in the park from the light rail station to improve access. The terminal was badly damaged by flooding during Hurricane Sandy in 2012 and was reopened in 2016. On

Election Day Election day or polling day is the day on which general elections are held. In many countries, general elections are always held on a Saturday or Sunday, to enable as many voters as possible to participate; while in other countries elections a ...

2020, an episode of the political program ''

Fox & Friends ''Fox & Friends'' is an American daily morning news and talk program that airs on Fox News. It premiered on February 1, 1998, and is currently hosted by Steve Doocy, Ainsley Earhardt and Brian Kilmeade on weekdays. Will Cain, Rachel Campos ...

'' was filmed in a portable studio placed outside the terminal. Promotional footage for the episode frequently features the terminal.

Gallery

File:CNJRR Terminal Jersey City NJ.jpg, Bush shed at CRRNJ Terminal, the largest ever built File:Central Railroad of New Jersey Terminal 02A (9434700879).jpg, CRRNJ Terminal from the water, 2013 File:Central Railroad of New Jersey Ferry Terminal.jpg, The old ferry docks at the terminal File:Communipawfacade.JPG, The upper facade of the terminal File:CRR NJ back.JPG, The grounds on the north side of the terminal File:CRR NJ signs10.JPG, A reproduction of a tablet designator for the CNJ ''Blue Comet'' File:Central Railroad of New Jersey Terminal - Employee Memorial.jpg, Memorial to the employees of CRRNJ at milepost 0 File:Central Railroad of New Jersey Terminal.jpg, Overview of the terminal and train sheds File:127 READING RAILROAD SYSTEM LEHIGH VALLEY DIVISION. DEPOT IN JERSEY CITY.JPG, The Terminal in 1893 File:InsideTerminal.JPG, Inside of the Communipaw Terminal File:Lehigh Valley Jersey City Terminal.png, Map showing the terminal facility in 1910 File:PATH original plan.png, Plans to extend the Hudson Tubes, which never materialized File:Lehigh Valley Terminal Railway.svg, Map of lines approaching Hudson Waterfront from south. The grey CNJ line from Bayonne to Elizabeth was carried by the CNJ's Newark Bay Bridge

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Central Railroad Of New Jersey Terminal Railway stations in the United States opened in 1864 Railway stations in the United States opened in 1889 Railway stations closed in 1967 Buildings and structures in Jersey City, New Jersey Former Central Railroad of New Jersey stations Ferry terminals in New Jersey Former railway stations in New Jersey Hudson River Museums in Hudson County, New Jersey Railway stations on the National Register of Historic Places in New Jersey Railroad museums in New Jersey Richardsonian Romanesque architecture in New Jersey Former Baltimore and Ohio Railroad stations Transit hubs serving New Jersey Railway stations in Hudson County, New Jersey Historic American Engineering Record in New Jersey National Register of Historic Places in Hudson County, New Jersey New Jersey Register of Historic Places Union stations in the United States Ferry terminals on the National Register of Historic Places Transportation buildings and structures on the National Register of Historic Places in New Jersey Railway stations serving harbours and ports