Hike #932; Jersey City and Newark Loop

Hike #932; Jersey City and Newark Loop

4/17/16 Jersey City and Newark Loop with Matthew Davis, Jack Lowry, Sarah Jones, Jennifer Berndt, Doug Levine, Sue Bennett, Mr. Buckett (Jim Mathews), ?, Wilma Vargas, Brian ?, Neil Washington, Jim “Uncle Soup” Campbell, Doug DeGroff, Carolyn Gockel Gordon, Jennifer Tull, Cindy Browning, Erika Lorin Daniels, Edward DiSalvo, Terri Allen, James Quinn, Amy Davis, Hu Yue, Pan He, Marissa Panton, Xi Chen, ?, Tom Edmunds, Serious Sean Dougherty, ?, ?, ?, and ? (Apologies for names I may have missed!)

This next hike would be the fourth in the series to cover the September 11th National Memorial Trail official route, and the second on the Morris Canal route. Like the previous one, we were able to do a loop utilizing the two routes rather well, and gave us the ability to promote both greenways a bit. We’ve had a really good following, but it’s still mostly just Metrotrails folks that would be coming out regardless of what series it was.

Lincoln Park

I had originally posted this as a hike that would be utilizing public transportation, but I made a goof in that the trains didn’t connect to Jersey City and Journal Square the way I’d thought they did. I ended up changing it for the better however, with a meeting point near the Retro Burger King off of Rt 440 in Jersey City. This would put us about where we left off on the Morris Canal on the previous hike, and a short walk from the official 911 Trail route through Lincoln Park.
Both of these greenways will utilize the Truck Routes 1 and 9 bridges over the Passaic and Hackensack Rivers, so it made sense that this would be a good place to start.

View on the trail north out of Lincoln Park

Most of the group met us at the start point, and Tom E and company met up with us in Lincoln Park. The most confusion we had was when we started, how to get into Lincoln Park. I figured we could just walk north, along the west side of it, but we ended up having a long fenced in section and I just didn’t know how to get in. We passed under the foot bridge over the the road, and made it all the way to a golf course. We ended up climbing up the wall to that, then we skirted the side of the golf course to get up to an overpass where we could access Lincoln Park. Everyone was a good sport about this ignorance on my part, and things went smoothly from here. We made our way through Lincoln Park, then out to a side trail along the Hackensack River meadowlands. I had wanted to follow this on the NJ Perimeter series, but it was closed when we were there at the time. It was now open, so it was time to explore it.
The trail went out along the waterfront, and pretty much ends at the north end near to the Pulaski Skyway. It offers some really awesome industrial views. Most of the group did the out and back and we made our way to the trail route again, then climbed up to Truck Routes 1 and 9 to make our way across the bridges.

East Coast Greenway, Liberty Water Gap Trail, 911 Memorial Trail, and Morris Canal Greenway...in one

The Morris Canal crossed the Passaic and Hackensack Rivers to the south of the present bridge site, and the Lehigh Valley Railroad would have crossed between the canal and the present bridge. I figured I’d add bonus miles for those interested and go back on the other side of the bridge at the end. This hike had enough buses and such that people could get back rather easily. There was a bus stop just north of the meeting point.
It was a pretty warm day for late April. I was wearing one of my loud suits, which was going to get to be too much for the day sooner than later.
The bridge provided us with some good views, but there wasn’t a great way off of it on the west side. The official trail route had had an improvement made with a sidewalk approach, the Passaic bridge, but I figured this would be good for the return route. For the way out, we remained on north side, then cut down across a grassy swath to pick up the walkway. That walkway now goes under a mess of overpasses and such that is actually quite interesting. It’s not the most pedestrian friendly place in the world, but somehow planners made it work. When we first hiked the Liberty Water Gap Trail as a series, we were just meandering under overpasses and trying to figure out the best and safest way to get to the walkways. It’s rather well spelled out for people today.

Mellow Yellow boardwalk

When we got to the Newark side, we continued along the street with the East Coast Greenway labels. The canal was actually a bit to the north of there, but there’s not much to see at that point. We saw no East Coast Greenway markers after a while, and it was easy to assume we were meant to stay along the Passaic River waterfront. It was the best, most pedestrian friendly route. A lot of it had been developed since I had last done a hike through. There were some boardwalks, one of which was a bright yellow material. The Morris Canal went parallel with the river here for a time as well, so it also fits in with the canal greenway.
We made one pit stop at a Quick Chek along the way, and I turned back to see if I could find someplace that had an alcoholic drink. Nothing was open though. I must have looked rather nutty walking alone on the streets of Ironbound Newark wearing a pink blazer and flowery pink, white, and blue butterfly collar shirt.
The canal greenway and the other trail routes overall must stay one as we headed onward to Newark Penn Station. Raymond Blvd is much built over the former canal route, which goes right through Penn Station. We walked beneath the station on the road, then continued up through Newark.
I imparted some of the history of Newark to the group, and told of how Robert Treat moved to the area due to it’s similarities to their original Massachusetts home, and how Military Park, the next stop on the trail, had remained undeveloped since it’s time as a military training ground in Colonial days.

Military Park, Newark

I discussed with Tom E. a bit about the route of the Lenape Trail as well as Liberty-Water Gap Trail, and what it’s founder Al Kent had had in mind when he was putting it together. Mr. Kent had told me that it sort of ended at Military Park, and then that the Liberty Water Gap Trail was intended to go down Ferry Street through Newark’s Ironbound district. When I did my series of hikes on it, I followed Mr. Kent’s instruction and followed that route. Today, the East Coast Greenway and LWG is marked on posts along the main Raymond Blvd it would seem. I actually find the Ferry Street route to be a bit more interesting, and I would personally love to see the LWG Trail route take that, and leave the Raymond route to the Morris Canal Greenway. Why not justify having people visit both places? Have a walking loop in the city? It’s all pretty interesting.

Group in Military Park

I went over some more history when I got the group together for a nice shot. One of my favorite tidbits of info on the city is the fact that the city’s main center, it’s center of commerce, is still the same location as it was during the time of settlement. This hardly ever happens with colonial towns. Cities tend to grow and their center of business moves to the outskirts, which in turn grows. Newark is unique in that way.
I also told them the story of Seth Boyden, who in 1818 invented Patent Leather, but never patented it because he was too busy inventing other things, or perfecting other inventions.

Trinity Church

We continued through Military Park and past the Trinity Church. The original church on the site, built in 1743, served as a Revolutionary War hospital, but was damaged in battle. The current church on the site was completed to replace it in 1810.
We discussed where the oldest church was, and I believe that is Old First Presbyterian Church, built in 1791 in the Four Corners district, which is present day intersection of Broad and Market, the aforementioned original town center of Newark. None of the trail routes go past this site, sadly. We continued left from Trinity Church onto Broad Street, and headed toward Washington Park.

Al Kent's old trail blazes keeping a low profile in Newark

The Newark light rail goes right up along the edge of Washington Park and reminds me of the earlier trolleys. It’s pretty cool to see it going by, and I’d forgotten it was even there.
There is a nice statue of George Washington in the park, which we crossed at an angle. Tom E mentioned that Mr. Kent intended for the trail to go by the Ballantine House, which is now a museum, and is right along the edge of the park.
Mr. Kent told me this was the formal end of the Lenape Trail only because he just never got around to blazing the section down to Military Park. I offered to do it for him, but he said “Naahhh that’s alright” when I talked to him about it several years ago.
Mr. Kent admitted that it was sort of sneaky putting the trail in. He had gotten permission from Essex County, but not really from the city of Newark. Typically, when we blaze trails on road routes, we use the utility poles to paint the markings and keep them right about at eye level. In Newark, Kent painted the blazes, but he put them down closer to foot level as to remain sort of low profile. I pointed out his blazes to the group when I saw them. They have faded and many more have disappeared since I last hiked the trail through Newark, but we could still follow them.

Branch Brook Park

The trail headed from Washington Park down the James Street Historic District of lovely homes. People were out and about wondering what was going on as we walked by. When I tell them that we’re hiking, they act rather bewildered, which is always a lot of fun.
I forget if we turned right on MLK Blvd or on Boyden Street. I also can’t remember which one Mr. Kent intended for the trail to go down at this moment. Regardless, we ended up on Orange Street heading westbound, for a right turn on Clifton Street which took us to the southeast corner of Branch Brook Park. We took a break before getting there as I found a store that sold the most delicious kinds of MD 2020.

Cherry Blossom on Lenape Trail, Branch Brook park

Jack brought along his carbon fiber guitar, and he and Sarah were singing the backdrop of the already very happy day when we arrived at the corner of Branch Brook Park. It didn’t matter that some of the cold nights we’d had eliminated some of the peak cherry blossoms for which the festival takes place every year. We had enough to enjoy. The park was full of people and we made our way to the north following the yellow blazed Lenape Trail. The trail remained mostly on paved paths at first, and the blazing wasn’t always great because we lost it from time to time. It was kind of muddy where it got to unpaved stuff along the ponds.

Branch Brook park

We took a break at a restroom area and a park employee watched us suspiciously as we hung around, singing or climbing the Cherry trees. Doug in particular was up in a tree just about every time we stopped anywhere.
We continued north from our break, and Jack passed on his guitar to Serious Sean. As always, the two of them tend to know different songs, and requests are always coming out. One of the girls asked Sean if he could play “Wish You Were Here”. I knew she was looking for the Pink Floyd song, which is kind of overplayed in my opinion, but what Sean came out with was the Chicago song “Wishing You Were Here” on which they collaborated with The Beach Boys.

Tree fun

I knew the high harmonies on it, and Jack knew the verses. I think Matt provided some baritone. I thought that was kind of neat, another great old song I hadn’t thought about in some time that certainly I’d never tried to sing, but between us all there was something there.
The trail continued mostly on the east side of the park, and we stopped at a vendor at some point for snacks. Tom E and a couple others cut out a bit early when we got toward the north side of the park. The rest of us just continued rambling further to the north. At some point, the trail turned off to the left, crossed a road, and remained on the west side of the park. I think some of the group stopped for ice cream and we waited up near the north end at the Second River.

Lenape Trail along Second River

Once we had everyone together, we turned on the trail to continue along the Second River. This section was new to me. I could see the original Lenape Trail on the other side of the river, but now it was routed on the other side and lengthened somewhat. So, when I come back to do the next section in late May, I’ll be covering new stuff myself.
Back in 2009, Stever Marano came out on one of my Pocono Rim hikes, shortly after he sort of took the helm on the Lenape Trail. He told me he sort of inherited the trail which had a lot of maintenance issues. When I first met Mr. Kent, he was pretty much keeping it cut back himself, but he was no longer able to keep up with it all. I told Steve he needed to get in touch with NYNJ Trail Conference, and he did.
Next thing I knew, the Trail Conference had adopted the trail and was remarking it better. They also extended it to include a couple more parks that were not a part of it before.

Neilstradomis

We followed the trail along Second River a short bit, and then turned back. We cut up hill to the other side of the park, returned to the blazed route, then made our way south along the west side of Branch Brook Park using it’s similar paths.
This side of the park was very close to the former Morris Canal, and the remainder of the hike was intended to trace it’s route more closely. There is a berm at the northern end of Branch Brook Park which I believe may have been a canal remnant, but I recall John Drennan telling me he didn’t think it was so. Branch Brook Park was developed in the 1890s, but I do think that a portion of that berm could be a canal remnant judging by historic maps.

Matt entertains

Soon, the Newark Light Rail emerges from the west and picks up the old canal route. When this light rail was developed, the tracks were simply laid in the old canal prism. That skirts the west side of the park, so we just remained in the park on that side and walked the pathways.
Matt took to the guitar next, and came out with some good renditions of Johnny Cash numbers. I’d not seen Matt walk while playing guitar, but he pulled it off really well, kept in key and made a nice job of it. He also sang and played another song that was good, but I can’t remember what it was!
We continued through Branch Brook Park, and Jack resumed playing guitar at and underpass. We sang another song but I don’t remember what that was either at this point.

Underpass acoustics

By that time we were getting near to the southern end of Branch Brook Park again. Mr. Buckett left to go to one of DJ Ray’s trivia things I think.
We exited to Orange Street by way of Clifton Avenue again to get across railroad tracks, then turned right on Orange further to get to the Newark Subway, built in the canal prism.
Back in the canal days, the canal too went under buildings. Boatmen would have to pole the boats beneath these buildings while the mule drivers would walk with the mules on parallel roads just as we were doing on this hike. Among the road walks we took zig zagging back and forth was Newark Street.

Abandoned jail

One of the closest places we could get to the canal was Newark Street. This is also the home to something I’d wanted to see for some time but never got around to it: the old Essex County Jail.
The historic prison was originally built in 1837, then expanded in 1890. I didn’t realize what it was at first, only that there was a plainly open fence and obviously people staying in it. We went in and sure enough it was the old jail.

wow...

The jail was originally built about the same time the canal was built. I would suspect they may have even used prison labor for some of the construction. The last upgrade to the canal was undertaken in 1842.
I went all through as best I could, checked out the second floor. It was really interesting, and downright creepy. Someone in the group saw guys spray painting inside, and they were probably more afraid of us than were were of them. I didn’t want to stay in there for two long in case we got in trouble, but I was glad we had the chance to explore a bit before moving on.
There were plans to demolish the remaining structure, but one plan was rejected. I’m not sure what will become of the property now.

Old jail

It could definitely serve as some sort of tourist draw, but the place obviously needs a ton of work. Much of it has collapsed, as it was damaged by fire some years ago.
The building remained in use as a jail until as late as 1970. It’s really amazing how much a place can deteriorate after not so much time.
We made our way out and then continued zig zagging along streets parallel to where the Morris Canal used to go through Newark. I took everyone down into one of the subway stations because I wanted them to see the artwork put into the tiles. Each station wall is adorned with Morris Canal art as an homage to what was there first.

Raymond Blvd, former Morris Canal

We followed along the edge of Raymond Boulevard where there was a sidewalk rather than following the parallel streets through that part. It would be easier, and I wanted to show everyone the historic photos compared with the current ones when we got down to the inclined plane site.
There is barely even a down hill grade that’s noticeable today at the site of the inclined plane. It’s hard to picture it there at all. We headed the gradual route down hill, and when we got to just beyond the bottom, I looked back and pointed out the site.
This was Morris Canal’s Inclined Plane #12 East, one of 23 Scotch Turbine driven inclined planes on the Morris Canal (there was a later added 24th electric plane over a railroad track).

Then and Now: Inclined Plane 12E

The Scotch Turbine works on a similar principal to the sprinkler system on a larger scale, with a pen stock and water flowing in from beneath to drive the plane. It was an incredible innovation for 1842. Prior to that, the inclined planes were an incredibly slow process run by regular overshot water wheels (water wheels where water flows over the top of them to make them move). Moving one boat could take over an hour as I understand with the old system.
I think by this time everyone was just too hungry to focus on the canal history. We continued back through Penn Station, and considered where we could stop to get some food. Once on the other side of the station, the first place we stopped in would have been both expensive and probably too tight to fit us all.

Fooood

I don’t remember the name of it, but we stopped for dinner at a delicious Mexican restaurant close by somewhere closer to Ferry Street.
Some of the group I believe continued ahead, some took a bus back to the cars. I was surprised that so many people in this crew wanted to go for all of the bonus miles, which would put us well above twenty for the day, but they were up for it!
We had lots of laughing and carrying on at the restaurant. The group must have taken up most of the seating area in the entire place. Jen and James left us to try to find her lost phone at the park, and even though it was only gone a few minutes, we think the guy at the restroom building stole it. He pretended not to speak English and was pretty shady.

Morris Canal art in Newark subway

Sean was cracking me up like crazy. When we were getting ready to go, he was walking around like a stiff necked cave man, picking up remaining baskets with chips and smashing them over his head. I was laughing so hard that it hurt to breathe.
Some more of the group opted not to continue walking after eating, but still several of us continued on to Raymond Blvd again, and followed it to the east. We remained on the waterfront for a little longer than we did in the earlier part of the day, and followed a good pathway toward an apartment complex. I looked at the historic maps and figured out roughly where the canal would have gone so that we could follow it.

Serious Smash

When we got to the apartment complex and began walking through, some of the residents stopped us. They told us that we couldn’t go through because there had just been a shooting! Well, obviously we had to go back. Fortunately, there was a better option in that a rough alley road continued parallel with the apartment complex, very possibly directly on top of the former canal route. We followed that out parallel with Raymond Blvd again in the East Ferry area, at Chapel Street. We turned right and then left to continue to Raymond which we followed to the east toward the Truck Routes 1 and 9 bridges.

Passaic River View

This time, rather than follow the north side again, we opted to follow the south side. This would save us from having to walk across the highway when we got to the Jersey City side anyway, and we’d have the better approach sidewalk because it’s the official trail route on the side side.

On the bridge

We remained on the south side to have a look at where the boats would have crossed. It might actually have been partially under the westernmost bridge over the Passaic. I’m not entirely sure. We followed the bridge to the land section in between, and I pointed out the retention pond to the right of the highway. It’s a long one approximately where the canal would have been, so it’s technically a watered section of the Morris Canal out on that peninsula. We didn’t hang around too long there because the last time I’d stopped there some lady came out and hollered at us.
By the time we got to the second bridge the sun was setting beautifully.

View from the bridge

I was feeling really good, and we were almost finished.
I could feel some pain in my feet from the very long road walking sections, but got through it alright.
This was really one of the most fun urban types of hikes we’ve done in quite a while. I didn’t think it would be as awesome as it was because I try not to do the more urban ones in the Spring, but this one was alright.
The hikes continue to improve as the year moves along. As we continue into May and make our way across Essex County, and into more woodsy environments I’m certain they will continue to get even better. I really look forward to the Lenape Trail and Patriot’s Path sections ahead, because I think they’re among the most diverse and on the entire 911 Trail route, and there’s more remnants to see on the canal route.

I feel very lucky to have such great company on this interesting continuing journey.

:D