On most Saturday mornings for more than 15 years, you could see the Number 2 bus from Jersey City stop at the intersection of County Avenue and New County Road, one of the most remote sections of southern Secaucus, known as “the back end.” Each bus would deposit as many as 20 or 30 people the roadside, people who gradually made their way down New County Road, clinging to the side where the lack of usual pedestrian traffic prevented a sidewalk from being installed. Groups of such people arriving with each bus made their way over one set of railroad tracks and then over another, passing the last batch of warehouses as they crossed Castle Road.
These people had one single destination, an equally remote and puzzling collection of wooden shacks installed just at the foot of the New Jersey Turnpike where it passed through that section of town. Cages – largely resembling the basketball courts you might find in some parks in towns like Hoboken or Union City – stood connected to these shacks, 12-foot-high fences locking them in with rolls of razor wire along their top telling anyone: this is a jail.
Saturday mornings and other days, visitors came to see state prisoners whose sentences had fallen below 90 days and were waiting to be released.
That is, until three months ago, when the state finally closed the site in order to allow a Turnpike Exit ramp to be built there.
A little history
The odd accumulation of buildings was constructed in the mid-1980s as a temporary facility. Hudson County was facing legal challenges because of overcrowding in its Pavonia Avenue jail, and the county sought to relieve the congested by housing some of the prisoners.
“It was meant to be temporary,” said Hudson County Executive Robert Janiszewski recently. “We were housing prisoners there until the Correctional Facility in Kearny was completed.”
“The county built the temporary jail under court order,” said Mayor Dennis Elwell. “The courts said the county could not put any more prisoners in the Pavonia facility, so they set up a temporary facility here.”
It was an uncomfortable situation. Although Laurel Hill had housed a prison in the past, Secaucus residents were alarmed, and town officials petitioned the county to remove the prisoners as soon as possible.
Indeed, the jail, located on county-owned property connected to Laurel Hill Park, was vacated in 1987 after the Kearny facility was finished.
But almost immediately, the state moved in.
Back again
The state began using the site as a satellite facility for the East Jersey State prison (which is located in Middlesex County). Inmates were held here for a short time before release, anywhere from 12 to 18 months.
Prisoners in state facilities had increased from 6,000 prisoners in 1980 to about 28,000 in the mid-1990s, due to tougher laws regarding parole. Parolees were being sent back to prison after violations. Many new prisoners faced mandatory minimum sentences, leaving the state short of space.
The facility in Secaucus consists of two housing units made up of trailers, attached to each other. Each unit houses 160 inmates for a total population of 320. Three other buildings contain offices and other support functions.
Town officials were appalled. County officials actually sued to keep the state from taking over the facility, but were rebuffed in court case after court case.
“The town fought against it, so did the county,” Elwell said.
While former Mayor Paul Amico said the town never went to court the way the county did, it raised objections against the project through the Hackensack Meadowlands Development Commission, especially when the state asked permission to increase the size of the facility in 1988.
“That area was zoned at the time for park/residential,” Amico said. “And we always felt that it was too valuable a resource to have it used for a prison.”
Amico said the biggest concern among residents at the time was that the jail might become permanent.
All’s quiet on Secaucus’ south end
Then, about three months ago, the facility went quiet. The Saturday morning procession of visitors ceased, and the yards usually filled with prisoners dressed in coveralls remained empty, with only a single state police car left on site to keep vandals from the facility.
Oddly enough, the legal issues did not cause the state to close the facility.
“For all our legal arguments, the real reason the state closed the jail was because the Turnpike Authority wants to put an exit ramp through that property,” Janiszewski said.
The Secaucus Transfer Station railway station – also known as Allied Junction – will require the exit so cars and buses can leave off passengers bound for New York.
Elwell, however, said action at the other state facilities also helped make it possible for the state to close the jail. “Apparently the state corrected the space problems in its other jails,” Elwell said.
In 1997, the state broke ground on a 1.3 million-square-foot medium-security prison in Bridgeton, N.J. The $234 million South Woods State Prison was New Jersey’s 13th state prison. This began full operations in late 1999. Another state facility was renovated around the same time, making it possible to eventually do away with the Secaucus jail.
Although Elwell said he had no way to prove how much the jail discouraged people from using the Laurel Hill Park, he believed people were reluctant to go past the jail to get to the park’s only entrance. He predicted an increase in park use once the facility is demolished.