Exchange Place is a district of
Downtown Jersey City,
New Jersey
New Jersey is a U.S. state, state located in both the Mid-Atlantic States, Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern United States, Northeastern regions of the United States. Located at the geographic hub of the urban area, heavily urbanized Northeas ...
that is sometimes referred to as
Wall Street West due to the concentration of financial companies that have offices there. The namesake is a square, about 200 feet long, at the foot of Montgomery Street at the
waterfront of the
Hudson River. This square was created by landfilling the shore at
Paulus Hook, and has been a major transportation hub since the colonial era.
Vicinity

A high concentration of
highrise office and residential buildings in the city are located in the district radiating from Exchange Place, which since the 1990s has overtaken
Journal Square as
Hudson County's major business district and become a major business center along the redeveloped waterfronts in the
Port of New York and New Jersey. The Mack-Cali building is host to several nesting sites for
peregrine falcons. The
Hudson River Waterfront Walkway
The Hudson River Waterfront Walkway, also known as the Hudson River Walkway, is a promenade along the Hudson Waterfront in New Jersey. The ongoing and incomplete project located on Kill van Kull and the western shore of Upper New York Bay and t ...
crosses Exchange, the other side of which is
J. Owen Grundy Park, extending into the
Hudson River.
The
Katyń Memorial by
Polish-American artist
Andrzej Pitynski is the first memorial of its kind to be raised on American soil to honor the dead of the
Katyń Forest massacre. In early May 2018, Holocaust survivor
Edward Mosberg co-signed a letter asking Jersey City Mayor
Steven Fulop not to remove the Katyń Memorial from Exchange Place in the city, writing: "The memory of the Katyn massacre is an important part of the memory and memories of the Holocaust and we encourage you to reconsider your decision to remove this monument."
To the south are
New York Waterway's Paulus Hook Ferry Terminal, and the two tallest buildings in New Jersey; the
Goldman Sachs Tower and
99 Hudson. The
Colgate Clock, promoted by
Colgate-Palmolive
The Colgate-Palmolive Company, commonly known as Colgate-Palmolive, is an American multinational corporation, multinational consumer products company headquartered on Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. The company specializes in ...
as the largest in the world, faces
Battery Park
The Battery, formerly known as Battery Park, is a public park located at the southern tip of Manhattan#Manhattan Island, Manhattan Island in New York City facing New York Harbor. The park is bounded by Battery Place on the north, with Bowling ...
in lower Manhattan. The clock, which is in diameter with a minute hand weighing 2,200 pounds, was erected in 1924 to replace a
smaller one that was relocated to a plant in
Jeffersonville, Indiana. The riverfront promenade, which provides vistas of
Lower Manhattan
Lower Manhattan, also known as Downtown Manhattan or Downtown New York City, is the southernmost part of the Boroughs of New York City, New York City borough of Manhattan. The neighborhood is History of New York City, the historical birthplace o ...
, continues along the
Morris Canal Little Basin, part of
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, New Jersey, Jersey City opposite Liberty Island and Ellis Island. The park opened in 1976 to coincide with United States Bicenten ...
. To the north is the former warehouse now housing
Harborside Financial Center.
History
As early as July 1764 a ferry began operating from
Paulus Hook to Mesier's dock which was located at the foot of Courtland Street (where
Cortland Street Ferry Depot would be built) and where
Battery Park City Ferry Terminal is located today. The first steam ferry service in
New York Harbor and the world was established in 1812 by
Robert Livingston (1746-1813) and
Robert Fulton
Robert Fulton (November 14, 1765 – February 24, 1815) was an American engineer and inventor who is widely credited with developing the world's first commercially successful steamboat, the (also known as ''Clermont''). In 1807, that steamboat ...
and traveled between
Paulus Hook and Cortlandt Street in
Manhattan
Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...
. The ferry dock stood at the head of the important highway to
Newark (and points west and south) established in 1795. The ferry in turn influenced the location of the terminal of the
New Jersey Railroad, which opened in 1838 running from the ferry dock via Newark to
New Brunswick
New Brunswick is a Provinces and Territories of Canada, province of Canada, bordering Quebec to the north, Nova Scotia to the east, the Gulf of Saint Lawrence to the northeast, the Bay of Fundy to the southeast, and the U.S. state of Maine to ...
. The railroad purchased the ferry operation in 1853 and in 1858 built a much-needed larger
intermodal terminal. After acquiring the railroad in 1871, the
Pennsylvania Railroad replaced the
terminal in 1876 and yet again in 1888–1892. Passengers could move directly between the trains and ferries without going outside (a similar plan can still be seen today at
Hoboken Terminal). The railroad referred to the location simply as Jersey City, and if necessary to distinguish it from other railroads' terminals, as the
Pennsylvania station.
It was probably the
street railways, the local transportation in Jersey City, that first needed to identify the location more precisely as Exchange Place. Beginning with
horsecar
A horsecar, horse-drawn tram, horse-drawn streetcar (U.S.), or horse-drawn railway (historical), is a tram or streetcar pulled by a horse.
Summary
The horse-drawn tram (horsecar) was an early form of public transport, public rail transport, ...
s in 1860, the local network connected the ferry with neighborhoods in the city and nearby towns. An off-street terminal called "Exchange Place" was established in 1891. It was almost at the water's edge, across the street from the
Pennsylvania Railroad terminal and with easy access to the ferries. Cars with signs reading EXCHANGE PLACE could be seen all over town. In 1901, the privately held land was given to the city by the PRR.
The
Hudson and Manhattan Railroad opened its tunnels from Exchange Place to New York in 1910. Significantly, the station was at first called "Pennsylvania Railroad Station", not Exchange Place, but by 1916 the name was expanded to include "Exchange Place". By 1926 the H & M station was simply "Exchange Place". The Pennsylvania Railroad did not officially give in until some years later, but all the stations, and the neighborhood, were firmly known as Exchange Place by the 1920s.
For many years the location functioned similarly to
Hudson Place, farther up the Hudson waterfront, as a terminus for the many
trolley lines which crisscrossed
Hudson County, as well as for those which traveled farther, from destinations such as the
Newark Public Service Terminal, or the
Broadway Terminal in Paterson. At one time more than ten lines operated by the
Public Service Railway originated/terminated here. The substitution of rail lines with busses, colloquially known as
bustitution, was completed in 1949.
Ferry services were also discontinued in 1949, and while the Pennsylvania Railroad service dwindled after the opening of
Penn Station in New York in 1910, it did not end until 1962. Following the end of service on the
Jersey City Branch, the remains of the large terminal were demolished, leaving a large open space on the waterfront. This and the elimination of other railroad passenger and freight yards along the river during the 1960s and 1970s opened up the land that would be used for redevelopment. The continued use of the name "Exchange Place" was based on the Hudson and Manhattan station (
PATH since 1962) and signs on the bus routes that had replaced the trolleys.
Since 2000, both a trolley service, in the form of the
Hudson–Bergen Light Rail, and a ferry service, provided by
NY Waterway at the Paulus Hook Hook Ferry Terminal, have been restored. It is also the terminus for several New Jersey Transit and privately operated bus routes.
Transportation
Pennsylvania Railroad Station
PATH
PATH service from
Exchange Place runs east to the
World Trade Center, north to
Hoboken Terminal, and west to
Journal Square and
Newark Penn Station.
HBLR
Three stations of the
Hudson–Bergen Light Rail in the district are
Harborside Financial Center,
Essex Street and
Exchange Place, where transfer to
PATH and ferry are possible.
Paulus Hook Ferry Terminal

The ferry that started in 1764 became known as the
Jersey City Ferry, but after nearly 200 years of service, the last regular ferry service across the Hudson ended in the 1960s. Service was revived in 1986, and today the Hudson's ferries are operated by
New York Waterway and
Seastreak.
Bus
In popular culture
The views provided along the waterfront are often featured as background images of
New York City
New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
and
One World Trade Center that have been used for
Gmail
Gmail is the email service provided by Google. it had 1.5 billion active user (computing), users worldwide, making it the largest email service in the world. It also provides a webmail interface, accessible through a web browser, and is also ...
,
WordPress
WordPress (WP, or WordPress.org) is a web content management system. It was originally created as a tool to publish blogs but has evolved to support publishing other web content, including more traditional websites, electronic mailing list, ma ...
, and
Emporis
Emporis was a real estate data mining company with headquarters in Hamburg, Germany. The company collected data and photographs of buildings worldwide, which were published in an online database from 2000 to September 2022.
Emporis was acquired ...
. The
EarthCam webcam for One World Trade Center, which is placed on top of the Hyatt Regency Hotel, is viewed by millions every week and is occasionally used by local TV news stations.
The 1998 film
Godzilla used the area that the
Goldman Sachs Tower currently occupies as the location for a military base. The Exchange Place PATH station was used to film an episode of
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and the ending of the film
Sid and Nancy was shot in the vicinity of Exchange Place near
Harborside.
A segment of
MTV's "The Week in Rock" was filmed along the Exchange Place waterfront during an interview with
Queen Latifah.
The pier and its New York backdrop is commonly used in the 2021 series
''The Equalizer'' as the location where Robyn and William privately meet.
The view of
Lower Manhattan
Lower Manhattan, also known as Downtown Manhattan or Downtown New York City, is the southernmost part of the Boroughs of New York City, New York City borough of Manhattan. The neighborhood is History of New York City, the historical birthplace o ...
from Exchange Place has been used for shots in the music video for
Demi Lovato's
I Love Me and in the lyric video for Afrojack and David Guetta's song
Hero
A hero (feminine: heroine) is a real person or fictional character who, in the face of danger, combats adversity through feats of ingenuity, courage, or Physical strength, strength. The original hero type of classical epics did such thin ...
.
See also
*
List of Public Service Railway lines
*
List of ferries across the Hudson River to New York City
References
{{NYC surface transit
Neighborhoods in Jersey City, New Jersey
United States
The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
Streets in Hudson County, New Jersey
Transportation in Hudson County, New Jersey
New Jersey streetcar lines
Bus transportation in New Jersey
NJ Transit Bus Operations
Transit hubs serving New Jersey
Redeveloped ports and waterfronts in the United States
Tourist attractions in Jersey City, New Jersey