Jersey City, New Jersey

Jersey City is a city located in Hudson County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 240,055, making it New Jersey's second-largest city. It is the county seat of Hudson County6.

Jersey City is across the Hudson River from New York City, and is part of the New York metropolitan area. The second largest city in the state and a commercial and industrial center surpassed only by Newark, it is a port of entry and a manufacturing center. With 11 miles (17.7 km) of waterfront and significant rail connections, Jersey City is an important transportation terminus and distribution center. It has railroad shops, oil refineries, warehouses, and plants that manufacture a diverse assortment of products, such as chemicals, petroleum and electrical goods, textiles, and cosmetics. The city has benefited from its position across the Hudson River from the island of Manhattan, and many Jersey City companies are extensions of businesses headquartered there. Further developments have included increased housing and shopping areas; other parts of the city, however, remain run-down after years of commercial inactivity.

Jersey City is one of the most ethnically and culturally diverse cities in the country, with an almost equal mix of non-Hispanic whites, non-Hispanic blacks, Asians, and Latinos. Of all US cities, it has one of the largest Arab and Muslim populations and proportions, one of the largest Asian proportions, and one of the largest proportions of various Latino and Hispanic ethnicities outside the southwest. It also has higher-than-average numbers of Jews, Italians, Cubans, Indians, and Irish than most cities in the nation.

The current mayor of Jersey City is Jerramiah Healy.

The city is presently governed under the Faulkner Act (Mayor-Council) system of municipal government.

The land comprising what is now known as Jersey City was wilderness inhabited by the Lenni Lenape in 1609 when Henry Hudson, seeking an alternate route to East Asia and failing in that mission, anchored his small vessel in Sandy Hook. After spending nine days surveying the area and meeting its inhabitants, he returned to Holland. The Dutch organized the United New Netherlands Company to manage this new territory and named it New Netherlands. In June of 1623, New Netherlands became a Dutch province. Soon after, Michael Reyniersz Pauw, Lord of Achtienhoven, a burgermeister of Amsterdam and a director of the West India Company, received a grant as patroon on the condition that he would plant a colony in New Netherlands of not fewer than fifty persons, within four years. He chose the west bank of the Hudson River and purchased the land from the Indians. This land grant is dated November 22, 1630 and is the earliest known conveyance for what are now Hoboken and Jersey City. However, Michael Pauw neglected to settle on his lands and was obliged to sell his holdings back to the Company in 1633 [1].

The first settlement was at Communipaw, an area adjacent to present-day Liberty State Park. A house was built here in 1633 for Jan Evertsen Bout, superintendent of the colony, which was then called Pavonia (the Latinized form of Pauw's name) [2]. Shortly after, another house was built at Harsimus Cove (near the present-day corner of Fourth Street and Marin Boulevard). This second house became the home of Cornelius Van Vorst, who succeeded Bout as superintendent. These were the first two houses in Jersey City. Relations with the Lenni Lenape deteriorated, and war parties virtually destroyed the settlement of Pavonia in 1643 and again in 1655.

Scattered communities of farmsteads characterized the Dutch settlements in what would become Jersey City: Pavonia, Communipaw, Harsimus, Paulus Hook and to the north, Bergen Township, later the town of Hudson, and incorporated into Jersey City in 1870 [3]. The first Jersey City village settlement was Bergen Township, established on what is now Bergen Square in 1660. The oldest surviving house in Jersey City is the stone Van Vorst house of 1742.

During the American Revolution the town was in the hands of the British who controlled New York, until Paulus Hook was captured by Major Light Horse Harry Lee on August 19, 1779.

Jersey City was incorporated as The City of Jersey in 1820, and reincorporated under its present name in 1838.

Jersey City was a dock and manufacturing town for much of the 19th and 20th centuries. Much like New York City, Jersey City has always been a landing pad for new immigrants to the United States. In its heyday before World War II, German, Irish, and Italian immigrants found work at Colgate, Chloro, or Dixon Ticonderoga. However, the largest employers at the time were the railroads, whose national networks dead-ended on the Hudson River. Until 1911, when the Pennsylvania Railroad Company built the first tunnel under the river, rail passengers transferred in Jersey City to ferries headed to Manhattan or to trolleys that fanned out through Hudson County and beyond. The last streetcar was decommissioned in 1949 and today, only one rail line, the former Erie Lackawanna Railroad, survives, with its terminus in Hoboken.

From 1917 to 1947, Jersey City was ruled by Mayor Frank Hague, whose name is synonymous with the early 20th century urban American blend of political favoritism and social welfare known as bossism. "Hanky-Panky," as he was known then, ruled the city with an iron fist while, at the same time, molding governors, United States senators, and judges to his whims. He was known to be loud and vulgar, and would often dismiss his enemies as "reds" or "commies." Citizens of Jersey City dared not speak out against him for fear of being harassed by Hague's police or being ostracized or publicly embarrassed in some way. Hague also lived like a millionaire, despite having an average annual salary of $8,000. He was able to maintain a fourteen-room duplex apartment in Jersey City, a suite at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in Manhattan, and a palatial summer home in Deal, New Jersey, while traveling to Europe yearly in the royal suites of the best liners.

The city developed a reputation for corruption, even after Hague left office. By the 1970s, the city was caught up in a wave of urban decline that saw many of its wealthy residents fleeing to the suburbs, and led to an influx of working class citizens scarred by rising crime, civil unrest, political corruption, and economic hardship. From 1950 to 1980, Jersey City lost 75,000 residents, and from 1975 to 1982, it lost 5,000 jobs, or 9 percent of its workforce. [4] The city experienced a surge of violent crime during this time period. New immigrants sought refuge in Jersey City because of low housing costs, despite the fact that many of Jersey City's neighborhoods were decaying and suffering from abandonment and neglect.

However, the city is quickly undergoing a renaissance. As the waterfront continues to grow, Jersey City's downtown neighborhoods are experiencing rapid gentrification as professionals working in Manhattan are beginning to move in. The downtown area has a significant number of Victorian brownstones, and at prices that are far lower than one would find, for a similar home, in Manhattan, or even Brooklyn.

Additionally, many financial corporations including Chase Manhattan Bank, Merrill Lynch, and the investment firm Charles Schwab have relocated to Jersey City or expanded their offices in the city since the September 11, 2001 attacks.

It is projected that Jersey City will pass Newark as New Jersey's largest city by 2010.