Hike #916; Manhattan to Hoboken
2/21/16 Manhattan to Hoboken with Gregg Hudis, Dan Lurie, Jennifer Berndt, James Quinn,
Our next hike would be a point to point between New York City and Hoboken, and the second in the September 11th National Memorial Trail series.
GW Bridge
This section was not the actual designated route, but part of the first “alternate”, where if anyone doing the trail actually wanted to walk the entire thing without utilizing the water taxi from Liberty State Park, they could do so by crossing the George Washington Bridge.
We started this series two weeks before (changed because of snow storm), and covered the waterfront walkway on the Manhattan side. This time, we’d head down to Hoboken on New Jersey’s Hudson River Waterfront Walkway.
Even though this and the previous two hikes we had done as a group seemed so similar in name, they were very very different.
We had another big group this time, though still not as large as I’d anticipated they would be when I started the series off. Still, we can continue to build interest as we cover more of the trail going across NJ.
The trail really isn’t a new trail, it is an Alliance, much like the East Coast Greenway. There are many different trails involved, and I aim to promote all of them and their connections through this series.
I got up and put on my pink shirt and purple blazer, and headed to the Short Hills Station to head to the city. For the first time I can think of, I boarded the train alone. No one showed up at Short Hills to ride in with me, which seemed odd.
I realized while I was there, that I of course looked out of place, and I don’t know many people who would show up at an unfamiliar train station dressed like that alone. I felt lucky that I genuinely didn’t care.
The train was announced to be seven minutes late. This put us behind slightly, because it already was scheduled to arrive in Manhattan nine minutes after the meeting time I had planned.
Once I was on the train and we passed through Newark, the train was dead stopped on the tracks again for another to pass by or something. I ended up even later. Ed was texting me to heckle me about it, even though I’d shown up maybe twenty minutes early for this one. The train schedule was out of my control.
I arrived in Manhattan and soon reached the group in Penn Station, at the round area where the Christmas tree usually is during Holiday season. I decided not to bring a backpack this time, and just enjoy the freedom of walking without anything.
When I saw Justin, I had to laugh out loud. He was wearing this hideous shirt I had given him in a happy bag on the last hike he was on, with a mismatched blue vest and green tie. It was so disgusting it was great.
Once everyone had arrived, we headed to the Subway to the north, toward George Washington Bridge. We had a great discussion with Louis H. about some of the DEP stuff in NJ.
View from GW Bridge
We had a nice subway ride, got off, and then stopped at a store for refreshments before moving on across the bridge.
The GW was really busy this time. A ton of cyclists were crossing, and hollering as they went by. It was hard to take the time to get pictures or look around.
Several more members of the group met us either on the bridge or just on the other side as we neared the park.
We got across the bridge, and on the other side turned left on the sidewalk. This was also the route of the Long Path. We turned left following the Long Path into the Fort Lee Historical Park, up the hill on the Palisades cliffs as sort of a side trip. I couldn’t just walk on by this without showing it to everyone, and there were restrooms at the visitor center.
Because it was too hard to do in the city with all the sound and people, I put everyone in a circle here to go over where we were going, what we were doing. I talked about the 911 Trail series, did introductions, and then told about the Long Path, how it was intended to go from NY City to the Adirondacks. I also showcased that one could take the Long Path to the Finger Lakes Trail, then to the North Country National Scenic Trail into the Alleghenies as an alternate to the 911 Trail route in Pennsylvania and eliminate all of the road walking (some 27 days worth) that the current alignment has on the north stretch. There are a lot of great routes to walk between all of the sights, and I want to promote the connectivity of all of them. Serious Sean walked up wearing his “OBEY” hat he got at the Palmyra flea market on one of the perimeter hikes.
View south from Fort Lee Historic Park
We stopped by the Visitor center, and inside I found several Hudson River Valley history books. They were for the taking with a $1 donation. I put in a little extra and bought all of them, but I didn’t have a backpack this time! Of all times! So, fortunately James came through for me and let me keep them in his.
We left the visitor center and checked out the awesome view of the George Washington Bridge.
GW Bridge from Fort Lee
The top of the slopes were set up with some historic reproductions. Fort Washington and Fort Lee were on both sides of the Hudson River when the Continental Army tried to protect the thoroughfare in 1776. Washington and the army were forced to retreat and the British took NYC. Nothing remains of the NY side of the fort, but Fort Lee area is preserved. There was a cabin like tower structure, and some fortification behind which cannons would have been placed. We headed to the south side, which had a fantastic view down the Hudson toward NYC and Jersey City, with Edgewater directly below.
My pink suit
There was a guy at the overlook that looked at me like I was a lunatic. I’m sure no one ever wanders through here in a pink and purple outfit.
Just below the overlook, in the middle of this very developed area, were a few deer. I was actually very surprised to see them in this urbanized part of Bergen County.
We turned back along more paths in the park, and descended on one that became just a woods road, an old access that is sort of washed out. I figured we could follow this up to the entrance we used. There was a closed gate, which I at first passed, but then someone, I think Serious Sean, realized we could actually fit through the thing! We held it open and just got out of the park very easily. We took a break here because Jen had just parked at the park and was heading over to us.
We continued down hill from here on the street, which had a good sidewalk at this time, and was the route of the Shore Trail, white blazed. I told everyone how that could be used as an alternate, as it connected back with the Long Path at the NY/NJ line, and had several connectors between.
Mirror Group Shot, Fort Lee
As we walked down hill, there were some beat up old buildings on the right. I recall them being abandoned when we hiked this before, but they were now really bad with chain link fences around them. Some of them appeared to have just been demolished on the right, as there was rubble and old foundations.
New waterfront walkway
We headed down hill beyond the Shore Path turn and road access to the bottom of the cliffs, but then had really no walkway along the road. We had to cross over soon, and paused for a mirror group shot.
We crossed back over again as soon as it was reasonably possible, and I was surprised to see that since my previous trip, a new section of Hudson River Waterfront Walkway had opened up here. It was a set of steps going down from the road directly. We all turned here to head down hill and skirted a boat marina area.
Waterfront walkway
The walkway was very nice, but it had some issues. There was a marina to the right, and a section of fence had been installed to block from going further on the walkway. The path was delineated by painting that said “walkway” or something on it, but we’d have to step over the railing.
I had thought we missed a section of the walkway before, because it went the other way too, but we didn’t. We followed this bit, and it just dead ended. Eventually that will go through.
We jumped the fence anyway and continued on the walkway. There were some guys working on boats there, but none of them said anything or even paid attention to the fact that we went over.
Future walkway
The walkway went out and around large apartment buildings and switched from concrete to pavers. It then abruptly ended where we could see it was still under construction. We could also see the intended route, which had lots of bricks being stored on pallets there. We just kept walking through the not impenetrable weeds and crossed over the fence at the next section of walkway.
Bridge view
I chatted with a couple waiting for the others to get over to me. They were surprised to see all of these people coming from the waterfront and over the fence. I asked them if they wanted a baseball I’d found. Must have been so odd!
The walkway continued very nicely from here with some great views of the GW Bridge, then reached the outside of an open area under development. One of the new guys told me that the walkway ended, that he had just scouted it. I wanted to see if there was one of my creative ways through anyway.
We ended up having to go back out and around anyway, except for Justin, Tom, and a couple others opted to take the crazy route and swing around a fence on the waterfront. They made it through and met up with us on the other side.
parakeets!
Out on the road, there were giant nests of parakeets in the utility poles which looked pretty interesting. I don’t recall ever seeing these before.
It was easy to miss the next section of the walkway moving on. Not all of it is well signed, but I managed to make the correct turn. A lot of the group was already ahead of me on the street, so they missed one little nice section. We headed through New York Waterways pier by the Grand Cove Marina, and came to an interested pier with a canopy over the top of it. The walkway continued to the right from here and was more easy to follow.
Canopy thing
The pathway took us out and around the Windsor Mariner’s tower, and around another corner to follow the waterfront south. One of the things I love so much about the NJ side as opposed to the NY side was that the NJ side was working around things that were there, or redeveloping so that it fit in. More of the NY side was designed as a park from the get go.
We went out and around a sweeping cove, and the others who missed the turn for the walkway rejoined us. We planned on stopping for lunch just up ahead, and I stopped everyone to let them know we’d take some time for that, and to get a group shot.
The group
Just ahead of this point, there was an abandoned ferry boat, who’s name escapes me, docked on the waterfront. I vaguely recalled seeing it before, but it used to be more secure. Michele when she joined us just up ahead that they had only just taken down the serious fence from around it within the past couple of weeks. It really looked out of place among all of the redevelopment, but even this bit of the pathway was shoddy compared with some other areas. It had washouts, and sections were broken up or missing.
Boat
I think the old boat being there is actually pretty cool, and adds to the area. Of course, Justin was immediately heading over to it, along with his cousin and Sean. I wanted badly to go with them, but figured I should keep the group together. In retrospect, I should have climbed onto the thing too.
Boat
I told everyone to take about a half an hour for lunch, because there was so much around, and we’d get back together by the waterfront.
Somehow, this always messes up. I wandered around a bit, and eventually settled on getting a couple of slices of pizza, because it looked so good. I was just going to get one bruschetta slice, but then a cheese steak pie came out and I had to get that too.
I went looking for the others after that, and found some sitting behind a corridor at the back of the stores, some over near a pet store taking photos of adorable cats in hammocks, and Justin and the others were still ferry boat exploring.
Eventually we got them back together, but after lunch the whole group went segmented as I had expected.
Dock ruins
I kept up with people a little bit at the start, and I let Tom E know a couple of the places I knew of where we would have to turn away from the waterfront, because the walkway hadn’t been developed. The group started separating a bit more then, and I turned to the left with a couple others to go around a store, which didn’t really look like the walkway but I knew it went through. Soon enough we were back on it and heading to the south. James, Jen, Justin, and I’m not sure who else were all still a long ways behind. I walked the nice waterfront out to the Target store, then went inland slightly to get a drink. I figured we’d get done pretty fast at this point and I wasn’t in a big hurry.
The others caught up with me and we followed the continuous walkway below Cliffside Park and to North Bergen. We had to return to River Road again when we got to sort of an industrial area, then cut through some retail space and through the inside of a building under construction to continue on the waterfront. There was a swath of waterfront walkway completed back there, but one wouldn’t know it unless they were with the few of us that remained further back and went on through. The walkway section was nice, and it passed some high end apartments, which already appeared to be lived in, but strangely had NO curtains!
Scoop
Serious Sean said it was a condo set up for exhibitionists! We continued to where the walkway ended again, and then easily waked through the construction site, which even had residents driving through it, right back to River Road.
The walkway began again and took us around Watermark Condos, and cut through part of the complex rather than remain directly on the waterfront.
We continued through Guttenberg area, with more high end buildings all around us. The waterfront was a lot of back and forth walking, sometimes with right angles and grids, other times with sweeping turns and abandoned docks.
"The Pipeline"
One of the more interesting points we came across was “The Pipeline”. This was not opened when we last walked this in 2009. It is a pipeline out onto the Hudson River, but the walkway on top is see through grating like they use on railroad bridges. This is the first time I can think of that this has ever been used as a totally open public thing.
NYC View
I could see the weird triangle shaped building we saw in NY two weeks prior from this area, which looked like it had a wedge chewed out of it. The views to the south of Manhattan and Jersey City were amazing, with the Verrazanno Narrows Bridge beyond.
View
We continued easily along the walkway to West New York and Port Imperial where we’d take a restroom break. There was a huge walkway overpass and steps down the Palisades I definitely want to do on a future hike.
Bridge
We hung out inside for a bit, though I don’t think we really needed to warm up, we kept warm moving around. It was somewhat windy out, but not really at all intolerable.
We got even more segmented when we left this place, some walking further ahead than others. We went out and around Day’s Point, and continued south into Weehawken past the famous dueling grounds where Aaron Burr shot Alexander Hamilton. We weaved around the Weehawken Waterfront Park, and passed one of the cooler of the World Trade Center Memorials, right on the waterfront. It was a section of the building that remained standing and visible from all the news broadcasts that followed 911. Sometimes the most beautiful ones are the most simple.
WTC memorial
We continued on to the south, and then came across a checkers board made of marble right along the waterfront. Or a chess board. Whatever you want. But we did not have any chess pieces.
Checkers!
A serious game of checkers ensued instigated by Serious Sean, using bits of crummy drift wood and paint chips!
Although we were just about to the Hoboken border, this was the slowest going portion of the entire hike. It was a good one up until that point, but it’s when we relax and really enjoy all of the little points of interest along the way that it’s something special.
We continued from here, and the walkway became more of a back and forth thing again, around buildings as we entered Hoboken. There was one closed section, but we just went around the gates and it wasn’t even a block’s worth of closure for what would have been a crappy road bypass.
Empire State Building view
We could see the Empire State Building clearly at this point, and continued south toward Pier 13 Hoboken. There were a lot of old piers that had railroad rails still out to them from when this was an industrial center.
Rails and piers
I thought we had passed Sybil’s Cave already when we got to this point, because I thought it was in Weehawken, but we hadn’t. I was kind of surprised when I saw the entrance just to the right of us, across the street.
I had always wanted to have a better look, but it’s always closed, and with a huge group it would be too hard. We had just the right size group at this time, and I didn’t want to miss out on anything like I missed out on the ferry. We walked across the street to check the place out.
Sybil’s Cave is actually a natural spring in rock, which was excavated in the 1830s by the Stevens family, who owned much of the land that is now Hoboken.
Sybil's Cave
It served as sort of a natural spring house, and tourists would come to the cave and were allowed to take water. It’s rather amazing that such a tiny cave could be such a huge tourist draw, but apparently it was.
There are also reports that this is NOT really Sybill’s Cave. Just above the cave entrance in my photo, and to the left, is a concrete slap. That is said to be the entrance to the REAL cave, though I don’t have anything to back that up. It would be interesting to find out if there really was a more substantial cave on the Palisade cliffs here that’s just been hidden away, and this was created to keep people happy.
Historic Sybil's Cave
I’m also not sure how the cave was named, though it was said to have been given the name shortly after it was opened.
Edgar Allen Poe even used the cave as an inspiration for one of his stories, where a murdered woman was discovered at the cave. Poe lived in Hoboken for a time, which almost makes me want to run a Halloween hike through Hoboken. Almost. We’ll see.
The cave now has an outlandish outside gate thing. We entered the front and found it covered over with big metal bars, but there was something to the left I thought I could just barely sqeeze through.
In the cave
I went first, and was able to cram myself under the bars between the rocks to enter the cave. It really wasn’t that big at all.
Justin followed me in, and immediately stepped in the spring water. It did look like this was something old. I couldn’t see the town creating such a major cut out to appease tourists. It had some pillars left holding the roof, which I could walk around on either side, but it was impossible without getting my feet wet. My black shoes needed to be cleaned anyway.
There wasn’t anything else to it, and I didn’t see anything that might have been a connection to another passage, though I can’t rule it out as a possibility considering how big a deal this once was.
Historic document on Sybil's Cave
We squeezed back out behind the bars quickly as not to have any trouble for hanging out there for too long, and made our way back across to the Hudson River Waterfront Walkway south. The road there is called Frank Sinatra drive, because he was born in Hoboken (although he didn’t live there for long).
Postcard history: Sybil's Cave
We soon passed through Frank Sinatra Park, then made our way through an amphitheater type of thing, followed by the weirdly shaped Pier C Park. There were only ten of us left by this point, as others had continued ahead when we checked out the cave.
There were seven survivors and three late joiners (slackers! lol)
Pier C had a crazy playground on it that we just couldn’t resist. Sean, Justin, and I were first on it I believe. We went right up this narrow ladder thing made of wood to the top of a long slide.
Slide ladder
It was slightly unnerving to go down this big slide, and we could see the kids going before us move so fast that we didn’t want to go down backwards or anything. It really was a pretty cool slide, so much so that Justin and I had to go back up for a second run on it.
After that, there was one of those odd merry go round spin things, but it was one of them that was slightly off balance, intentionally so that it would be easier for riders to get it going at a good speed. A lot of playgrounds deem these things too dangerous and have them removed. We of course had to ride it and fall all over the place a few times.
Fallin over
There was a wedding going on near the playground, or an engagement or something, and roses were laid out on the walkway, so I grabbed one up and figured I’d give it to Jillane later, though she didn’t like it anyway.
We moved along from here to the south, and then came to Pier A. This was a long square pier with a lawn where people like to look at the NYC skyline. It really was great from this location. It was getting dark, which probably made it even busier.
We stayed on the pier to watch a huge cruise ship go by, which looked like a skyscraper itself. It’s amazing anything that big floats.
Cruise
The Hoboken terminal was in plain view, with it’s clock tower lit up. Someone checked the train schedules and realized that the next one we’d want to take would be coming in about ten minutes or so, so we headed in to get tickets.
Hoboken terminal
Everything was sort of hurried. We stood around briefly, and appreciated the look of the amazing old station. I asked a conductor how far the ride was from there to switch, where we’d transfer to my train back.
He said it was only ten minutes, and my credit card wasn’t working in the machines, so I figured I’d just have to look at getting a ticket on the train, if they checked at all. Many times they don’t.
The others all went other ways, and just Uncle Soup and I ended up on the train. They didn’t take tickets for the first bit, and we soon switched. Actually I think it was Newark Broad Street we switched. We boarded that next train, and amazingly they did not ack for tickets again. I got a totally free ride back!
This was really a great day to be out. I can only hope that all of the hikes on this trail series go so well. The next one, planned for March 20th, will be almost completely different ,with hardly any waterfront and just inland routing of the trail, as well as re-starting the Morris Canal Greenway series.
This has nothing to do with anything.
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