What does it take to lure open-space advocates inside on a sunny Saturday in October? How about a celebration of open space? Hundreds filled the Resurrection School gym on Brunswick Street-all for the sake of a stone wall. But not any stone wall. This one has a history as tangled as its name-the Pennsylvania Railroad Harsimus Stem Embankment. Also known as the Sixth Street Embankment, it comprises a series of sandstone and granite blocks spanning Sixth Street from Marin Boulevard to Brunswick Street. A section of the Pennsylvania Railroad freight line traversed the area from 1902 until the late 1970s.
For the past 10 years, the Sixth Street Embankment Coalition has labored to save the embankment from development and in recent years has worked to turn the top of the embankment into a park and nature trail that would link to a 2,500-mile series of trails stretching from Maine to Florida. The current plan includes a light rail route from Jersey City to Secaucus-a component that the coalition initially opposed but later learned to live with, given that the tracks account for only a quarter of the 100-foot area.
Not surprisingly, that’s not where the story ends. The Sixth Street Embankment is the quintessential Jersey City parks project, with the forces of preservation and progress going head to head amid the city’s ongoing quest for open space.
IN A NUTSHELL: NEW YORK property owner Steve Hyman and his partners bought the embankment from Conrail, the railroad company, with an eye toward demolishing it and building 64 two-family homes. He later floated plans for 1,500 units that would be integrated with the park, nature trail, and light rail. But the embankment coalition and other open-space advocates take issue with the quantity and height of the buildings, charging that they would damage the embankment structure, as well as its historic-landmark status.
The plan is entangled in red tape. Under federal law, rail carriers intending to abandon any part of their railroad lines must first file an application with the Surface Transportation Board (STB), the federal agency that regulates interstate railroad transportation. If the STB finds an abandoned railroad property suitable for public use, then the property must be offered for sale for that purpose, not sold to a private buyer like Hyman.
Community members signed a petition and sent it to the STB stating that Conrail should have gotten authorization from the STB to abandon the embankment before it was sold to Hyman. The October event at the Resurrection School was held to celebrate the STB’s ruling in favor of the petition. At press time, ownership of the embankment was still in question.
NEWCOMERS WERE THERE IN force, joining longtime residents to help preserve as much open space as possible in a city bulging at the seams with new development and new urban dwellers. Jersey City’s current population of 240,000 is expected to reach 270,000 by the 2010 census. The larger the population, the more the need for parks. And young families bring kids and pets-prime users of open space.
Jennifer Meyer, president of the embankment coalition, moved to Jersey City from Manhattan in 1996, where she lived in an apartment near Central Park. Like many others, she was attracted by the Jersey City construction boom that started about that time. Now she lives with her husband and six-year-old son near Hamilton Park, just blocks away from the embankment.
Meyer says the October celebration was scheduled during the day to accommodate new members with young children. “We had an enormous turnout,” she says, a sign of public demand for park space in an ever-widening urban landscape.
TWO FORMULAS ARE USED to calculate the amount of park and recreation land necessary for city residents, according to the city’s Master Recreation Plan (RMP), which was completed in late 2006 but not yet integrated into the overall Master Plan. Currently 65 city-run parks covering 745 acres are listed in the RMP.
The Balanced Land Use formula is used by the New Jersey Green Acres Program, which provides funds to cities and towns to develop new parks. That formula calls for municipalities to set aside three percent of the city’s total area for recreation, which in the case of Jersey City would be 356 acres to be set aside for athletic fields and other recreation space. Currently, according to the RMP, there are only 143 acres, or one percent of city land with athletic fields and other recreation space-a pittance for a population of 240,000.
Another formula, developed by the National Recreation and Park Association, recommends 10.5 acres of parkland per 1,000 people, which in the case of Jersey City would be 2,521 acres. To satisfy this formula, three Jersey City parks that are not run by the city would have to be included-the 1,130-acre state-run Liberty State Park, and the 273-acre Lincoln Park and 21-acre Washington Park, both run by Hudson County.
Creating new park and recreation space is a tall order in a city where nearly every vacant lot is being eaten up by luxury housing and other residential units. But that hasn’t stopped activists from advocating for new parks.
ALTHEA BERNHEIM KNOWS FIRSTHAND the need for a park in her neighborhood. Bernheim, along with her husband and three young children, live in a two-family house on Henry Street, a few blocks from the Journal Square PATH Station. The property, in an area called Hilltop, has one precious commodity-“A backyard, which we open to kids in the neighborhood who have no place to go,” Bernheim says. “It’s a sad thing.”
But sometimes her kids need more than a backyard, says Bernheim, who moved in 1999 from Metuchen, NJ, so that her husband could have an easier commute to New York City. She also brings her children, ages five, three and nine months, to Hamilton Park and Van Vorst Park, both Downtown, where they can play with other kids they’ve befriended over the years.
“People with young children tell me, ‘I’m moving to the suburbs’ because there isn’t enough open space being created,” Bernheim says. “In my area, a little park would make a big difference in keeping families from deciding to get up and leave.”
Bernheim says some new families moving into her area are making an effort to bring a park to their neighborhood. Plans call for a 100-square-foot fenced park with separate areas for children and dogs on an abandoned Conrail lot on Waldo Avenue.
RESERVING LAND FOR NATURE is also a crucial element of open-space planning. Since 2001 the Jersey City Reservoir Alliance has sought to preserve Reservoir No. 3, which once provided water to the city. On misty mornings water fowl can be seen coming in for a landing, breaking the perfect surface of the water. Except for the massive walls that enclose the reservoir and the tops of skyscrapers just visible in the distance, this urban oasis looks like rural wilderness.
The alliance in recent years successfully fought off plans for developing the reservoir for athletic fields or schools, with hundreds of protesters ringing City Hall and attending City Council meetings. From April to October, the public can fish and canoe in the reservoir and enjoy watching the ospreys, red-tailed hawks, and sunfish that make their home there. But advocates are still working to secure the 13-acre space as a full-time nature preserve and park, operated by the city year-round, with such amenities as a perimeter trail, wildlife sanctuary, boathouse and dock.
Steve Latham, founder of the reservoir alliance, lives in the Heights and moved from Manhattan to Jersey City nearly 25 years ago. During that time, he says he has gone from a newcomer not really connected to his home town to an open-space activist engaging his community in making the reservoir park a reality.
“When I first moved to Jersey City,” he says, “people had an attitude of ‘Who cares about nature?’ It’s not that they didn’t respect nature, it was just they had other more pressing concerns. In a busy place like Jersey City, people are now going to look for a place where there’s a slower pace and a connection to nature.”
The reservoir alliance got support from Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy last year for the nature-preserve concept but so far it remains just that-a concept.
ONE POLITICIAN WHO IS attacking the parks issue head on is City Councilman Steven Fulop. He says the Downtown area, which he represents, has a number of community groups that come to him with proposals for various parks projects.
“The renovation of Hamilton Park has taken [several] years [to get underway] but this year we will start work,” he says, “and the dog run at Van Vorst Park was in the works for God knows how long but it finally opened.” Fulop worked closely with both Hamilton Park and Van Vorst neighborhood associations, which are very active.
Fulop also envisions parks being built in areas that might not be considered suitable. As an example, he says, “I’ve met with corporations and with the New Jersey Turnpike about a skate board park underneath the turnpike by Montgomery Street, and [on] Fifth Street.”
Jersey City Councilman Mariano Vega says he “thinks about parks all the time.” That may have something to do with his other job as director of the Hudson County Department of Parks, Engineering and Planning, which oversees the Hudson County parks system.
Vega says Mayor Healy’s administration has shown its commitment to open space by commissioning the Recreation Master Plan, setting a goal of 20-percent growth in the city’s park space, and going forward with current park projects such as the renovation of Owen Grundy Park at Exchange Place overlooking the Hudson River.
HE SAYS HE ALSO sees city parks being built on “brownfields,” or land once used for industrial purposes that is now contaminated with toxic waste. The contaminated soil would obviously have to be removed and the area capped to prevent any remaining chemicals from leaching out.
The city is already moving in that direction with the proposed development of Berry Lane Park, a 15-acre recreational complex located on a former dumping ground on Communipaw Avenue.
“This administration has focused on the greening of Jersey City,” Vega says, “but I think we can do more. People are making more demands for amenities like parks and dog runs as they set down roots. There was a time when people left for Montclair and Glen Ridge but now they have decided to stay here.”
The embankment coalition’s Jennifer Meyer, who has stewardship of what might be one of Jersey City’s most complicated parks projects, says “People say they moved to Jersey City during the construction boom to be close to Manhattan, but I think this city is so much more than that. If you don’t have good city planning during the boom, then you won’t have people staying after the boom-and that includes planning for city parks.
“These people have a hunger for open space.”
Parks through the Ages
“A city without proper recreation and playground centers cannot be termed a modern city. It is an old but true saying that all work and no play make Jack a dull boy, and [it is] with that theory in view that Jersey City today stands among the leaders of modern cities with ample play space for the kiddies and beautiful parks and athletic fields for the older folks.”-“Jersey City as it is today and as it will be tomorrow,” the Jersey City Board of Commissioners, 1920
That 88-year-old booster statement could serve as a mantra for Jersey City’s perpetual quest for open space, which dates to the 1800s. Van Vorst Park, one of the city’s oldest, was donated by the Van Vorst family in 1835. Before his death in 1827, local businessman John Coles who owned what is now Hamilton Park, envisioned the property as public space. In 1851, Hamilton Park was developed by the city after it won a case against Coles’ heirs who had wanted to keep the land private.
For more than one hundred years, city officials would grapple with the problem of too few parks for a citizenry that was demanding more and more. In 1910, Jersey City boasted nine parks totaling 39 acres.
The 1970s saw a move to create parks more suited to the citizenry, which by then consisted of an increasing number of ethnic groups and New Yorkers with children. Parks that were decaying and growing obsolete were slated for renovation. By 1973, there was a total of 430 acres of park space for a population of 260,000.
In March 1974, the city unveiled its “master plan for parks, recreation and open space.” That plan made many of the recommendations suggested by the recent Recreation Master Plan. It proposed increasing park space, although it spelled out three acres per 1,000 people instead of the recommended 10.5 acres. It also recommended more parks with playground equipment and athletic fields instead of just benches and small ponds for birds and fish.
A story in a local paper in September 1970 reported community members fighting the city over the auction of a 2,000-square-foot lot at Terrace Avenue and Thorne Street. In 1956 the space had been dedicated as a playground but had fallen into disrepair.
A Terrace Avenue resident, Charles Metijian, who led a citizens group protesting the auction, told the paper that “neighborhood residents would like to see the playground refurbished rather than sold for use as an apartment house site.”
Sound familiar?-RK
The Legacy of Liberty State Park: 50 Years and Counting
On June 13, 1958, a wet, misty morning, Morris Pesin took a historic canoe trip from what is now Liberty State Park to Liberty Island. A year before, Pesin and his family had endured a three-hour trip from Manhattan, braving traffic jams and long lines, to visit Lady Liberty. It was that frustrating journey that led Pesin to demonstrate-with his eight-minute voyage-how close the statue is to Jersey City. What better place to create a beautiful park to serve as a backdrop for the world-renowned landmark?
Eighteen years later-on June 14, 1976, the nation’s bicentennial year-the park was opened to the public. This huge, 1,130-acre playground on the southern end of the city welcomes upwards of five million people each year.
Pesin died in 1992. His son, Sam, now serves as the president of the Friends of Liberty State Park, which works with the state to enhance the park’s beauty and save it from development.
Ironically, Pesin says, “My father’s creation of the park gave the idea to developers and the city to go ahead with the revitalizations that took place on the waterfront in the 1970s and ’80s.”
Construction continues on private land around the park. Those projects include the completion of the Liberty National Golf Club, the recent expansion of the Liberty Science Center, a proposed hotel and conference center on Philip Street across from the science center, and three condominium towers to be built near Liberty National.
The struggle to preserve the Sixth Street Embankment, Reservoir No. 3, and other open spaces is much like the one Morris Pesin and his colleagues fought in their time.
Says Pesin: “It’s about the vision of the essential, spiritual need for open, public green space.” –RK
PHOTOS: SANDRA SWIEDER PHOTOGRAPHY
PHOTO: RICHARD J. MCCORMACK
PHOTO: LEON YOST