Hike #748; Jersey City/Bayonne West Side

Hike #748; Jersey City/Bayonne West Side

1/18/14 Jersey City to Bayonne Hackensack River and Newark Bay Waterfront with Brandan Jermyn, Julie Valasquez, Jennifer Berndt, Craig Nunn, Ed DiSalvo, Dan Lurie, Sue Olivar, Gregg Hudis, Jen ?, Chris Herbig, Carla Bleilor, Angela Castro, Lynnie Petrucci, German ?, Nadia Udeshi, Jordan Yanco, Laurie Spaia ?, Anne Pameix?, and Laurie Wilsa (Please excuse if I've missed and/or misspelled!)

The within view of the Newark Bay Bridge

Our next hike would be a point to point between the Liberty State Park train station in Jersey City and the 8th Street station in Bayonne, heading west to the Hackensack River and Newark Bay waterfront, and following it as closely as possible south. I was still missing a section of this needed in order to hike the entire perimeter of NJ.
We met in the morning at Libert SP station, and Craig recommended we purchase our tickets right away because then we wouldn't have to waste time when we arrived, possibly save us some waiting.
When we were ready to start, we followed Johnston Ave under Rt 78, then followed a parallel pathway that led us to Philip Street. We turned left here and met up with the route of the Liberty-Water Gap Trail and followed it across the newly replaced bridge over the inlet of the Morris Canal Big Basin. The old bridge was what appeared to be a re-used old railroad bridge near to the water level, or at least it looked like one because it had rail ties for decking. During Tropical Storm Sandy, the bridge was destroyed, washed off of it's footing further into the inlet with only the south side attached. The new bridge was an arched prefab structure, painted blue. It sort of looked out of place. I joked with Craig that they were utilizing state of the art "Trail Bridge Technology" like the one that we saw in Brooklyn.
We crossed the former Morris Canal route, and we had a participant from Jersey City as well as Craig who knew the city very well, and I believe we turned left to head up Montgomery Street. 

As we walked, it started to snow like crazy. None of us were expecting that. It snowed, then freezing rain, then rain, then snow again for a while. I wore my WWII Private First Class coat which seemed to hold onto the snow like lint. We walked by a hospital on the left, an awesome building that was once abandoned (Justin's seen it), and Lynnie realized she was born there when we went by, and had to take several pictures.
We took a break at a little mini mart along the way. Pretty much everyone went inside for some hot coffee or snacks. This place was in a narrow parking area on a lower level than Montgomery Street, and I figure it's probably struggling to get by. This crowd of 27 people was probably enough for them to make their profit margin for the whole day! Brandan found a pack of six glazed donuts, standard sized, for only 99 cents! You don't see deals like that anywhere! It certainly tasted like an 18 cent donut, but Justin and I both agreed that for the taste it was worth 18 cents (we factor in tax of course).
We continued along the streets, and 99 cents seemed to be the magic number. I saw a store that said "Everything 99 Cents Up and Less". Somewhat funny. Just past there, there was a pizza place that sold 99 cent slices. We continued along the streets until we reached the entrance to Lincoln Park.
I'd not been in Lincoln Park since doing the the Liberty Water Gap Trail hike in the area. There were now signs along the route that were not there before. It is also the route of the East Coast Greenway. We headed down through the park past the Lincoln Statue, then to the interesting fountain in the middle. It was empty so Justin and I walked out into it. Of course he had to climb it.
The snow was coming down most heavily as we crossed the open field by the fountain. We muscled through it and made a rest stop at a restroom that was surprisingly open and heated. We hung out here for a little bit, and Anne and Lor decided to turn back because Lor was a little sick. Craig advised them on the best route for them to get to the train at Journal Square. The rest of us continued on from here, and the snow and rain stopped.
There was a new section of Lincoln Park out along the waterfront from here, and it was really nice because it cleared up enough that we could see the Pulaski Skyway built in 1931 and the power plant beyond it. Those are the critical points we wanted to see from here. There were also new trails being built and another prefab bridge across a body of water, but the trail was blocked off on the other side. With a smaller group, I'd have checked it out, but we had a very long way to go to the south.
The trail led along the water and came to a very good view of the Truck Route 1 and 9 Bridge. I think it's an interesting bridge, but it's not particularly attractive. Either it or it's sister bridge over the Passaic has a plaque on it saying "voted most beautiful bridge", and Dan kept joking that it's horrible looking, and why would they build two of these monstrosities let alone one.
As we neared the bridge, we had some more great views. From this point we had to walk beneath the bridge onto an abandoned roadway. This involved walking by a few homeless people's campouts. Craig told me of two times he'd passed beneath and that the people had a pet cat. I looked for the cat but could not find it unfortunately.
The road on the other side had railroad rails in it. I believe this site might have been a former rail bridge crossing but I'm not certain. The rail was almost not noticable, just barely in view above the existing pavement. Justin climbed up a billboard along the service road, and then we continued parallel with the highway to Rt 440 and headed south.
We didn't have to go far, and we came to the Hudson Mall. We took the opportunity to hike through the mall, which is always interesting. We went straight through the mall, then out the other side, then headed to the waterfront behind it. We had good views of the Truck Rt 1 and 9 bridge here, but the best thing to point out was an old Central Railroad of NJ branch to Newark, now gone, and where it crossed over the Hackensack River just to the south. The line is nearly forgotten as I understand. On the recent hike from Newark to Summit, Craig and Carla had pointed out the Newark Broad Street terminal for the old rail line. It's one of the few remnants of the old line through Newark, and most of it is now almost unrecognizable. The bridge over the Passaic is only partially in place, with it's swinging section in the middle rotten and nearly weathered beyond recognition. The rest of the line to the east is now the West Side branch of the Hudson Bergen Light Rail.
We headed south from here along Rt 440, and made a stop at Stadium Plaza for some food and drinks before heading back out to the waterfront. We then walked out Kellogg Street to the next walkway entrance. This entrance was along a private community, but there were no signs saying not to trespass. There was a gate outside, but it was not locked. I didn't realize that at first, so I went around it and everyone followed.
We got onto the walkway, which was beautiful, and continued south. We had good views of the Casciano Memorial Bridge, also known as the Newark Bay Bridge, and bridges beyond, and behind us to Truck Rt 1 and 9.

Although the walkway was very nicely done, it was planted along it's edge with Sycamores. These fast growing trees are probably the last thing you'd want to put in a paver walkway like this, neatly lined with slabs and brick. Many places of this path were already heaved from the roots of these trees. The south side of the development has been there a little while, since 1995 or probably earlier, but the north section where it wasn't heaved was not completed till 2006. We assume the walkway is a public thoroughfare, but those who run the community don't want it to be known. That would explain why the gate is left unlocked.

We paralleled some fields by Rt 440, and continued south along that highway. This wasn't so terrible a section because it had waterfront views the entire way. When there was an exit jughandle on the right, we turned right onto a grassy path that followed the rip rap rock supporting the shore. This was a particularly nice section. Justin was getting close to the waterfront, with it's very slippery rocks. Good thing he didn't fall in. It wouldn't have been fun fishing him out.

We headed along 440 under the railroad bridge, then further south under the Casciano/Newark Bay Bridge. Just beyond here, another trail section began again in Richard A Rutkowski Park. Before we even got to it, we turned onto a foot path along the top of the rocks beside the water, which was really nice. We soon turned onto the paved trail which kept us on the waterfront, and led to an Elco Boat Works crane set up along the waterfront as a memorial. Needless to say, Justin had to climb it.

From here, we passed a nice observation deck, followed by an outstanding boardwalk, called the Bayonne Nature Walk. The first part had wildlife observation blinds built onto it. The boardwalk led us out to more of the park where the walkway led to the right out to the water again, paved. This one was known simply as Bayonne Park. We kept to the waterfront and got a group picture at a platform on the north side. From the end of the park we were able to walk up to 37th Street, and then we turned right on Avenue A. We kept to the street until we reached an old High School, which was architecturally nice. Craig opted to cut out here, having done most of what we were doing ahead (well, he hadn't done all of it for sure, but I'm sure he's done a lot!).

We all turned right past the High School on 30th  Street, then turned left. Just beyond the High School, we headed down to probably one of the few remaining sections of beach in Bayonne, which was rather nasty and full of trash.

We climbed up from the beach into Veterans Park. We got some more good waterfront views, then turned right away from the park behind a trailer park. We had to swing around a chain link fence, then climb over another railing to get to the next walkway section near a building. A black fence lined the south side of this section, and so we followed it, then cut toward the waterfront to the right, keeping to the higher ground. Some sort of runoff outlet made it's way into the bay from here. We followed a foot path that took us out to 22nd Street. We turned right on Avenue A again, then right again on 21st Street.

At the end of 21st was a steep slope, and then a section of rocky beach barricaded off by a chain link fence. I went to the end of the fence and was able to swing myself around pretty easily without getting into the water. Dan found his way to a hole in the fence which probably required less agility, but I didn't see it. We followed the gross section of beach past another homeless camp site and to City Park, with ball fields and a path along the waterfront around it.

We checked out a dock into the river and a shopping cart that had been thrown in. It always makes me think of the "Jerry Jackson: Life and Death" cartoon where he refers in the British accent to the "Supermarket trolleys what people has discarded because they came from the broken homes as well as me...".

From this point, we made a valiant attempt to get further along the waterfront. We followed a good section of beach to the Robbins Reef Yacht Club where we couldn't go through. I checked out the slope above to see if we could get up to the dead end streets, but this too was not feasible. We opted instead to just backtrack and follow City Park out, which along with roads has another section of paths that led us right back out to Avenue A. We followed the road south, and I tried to access the water on 8th Street to no avail. We finally reached it off of Boatworks Drive, where the next section of the walkway starts. It took us down a section of steps to the waterfront. I did this section on a hike in early 2009, and remembered it well.

The trail led us on a nice section past new homes and docks, and then through a vacant area beside an old pier area. The trail then led out to behind a shopping center where we found tons of feral cats. They were everywhere, and people had constructed all sorts of shelters for them out of rubbermaid or sterilite containers, real cat carriers, boxes, wood, and whatever they could find. I tried to pet several of them right away, and although they let me close, none of them would let me pet them right away. I peeked into one of the shelters well off the trail to find some nice looking orange cats, scared of my presence, but doing well. They all looked pretty healthy. A couple of them finally let me pet them a bit, especially a tuxedo one that sort of followed us away from the site. He was skiddish, but liked being pet when he started to trust me. Like before, most of the group continued ahead and Justin and I were at the very back of the group trying to make friends with cats. The tuxedo cat finally let Justin pet him too.

We moved on and turned right on railroad tracks heading south. We met back up with the rest of the group at what appeared to be a station platform, now unused, and everyone started "meowing" at us as a joke. We continued from here south on Avenue A as far as we could go until we were beside the Bayonne Bridge. One of the reasons for doing this hike at this time is because it is one of the last times we'll see the Bayonne Bridge as we've come to know it. It will look somewhat different because the roadway lanes are being jacked up to further up within it's signature arch. We passed under the bridge and turned left into Mayor Dennis P. Collins Park, and stopped to swing on the swings.

From here, we followed the waterfront walkway east. This section offers the best views of the Bayonne Bridge, which I had to keep reminding everyone to look back at because we wouldn't be facing it. Our destination was the section of the walkway on the dock at the end of 1st and Lexington where the walkway ends. Once here, I told everyone that we'd made it. Several wanted to head out and get back to the train station as quickly as possible, so I helped them with my phone to find the location. The rest of us would go looking for food. We'd seen a pizza parlor along the way, and opted to go back to it, but found it surprisingly closed.

I forget the name of the place we found to eat, but I think it was Mona Lisa's Pizzeria. Gregg and I split a taco pizza, which wasn't all that great unfortunately. The prices at the place were cheap, but it wasn't the best pizza ever. We did some trading off of slices for other kinds of slices other people had gotten. The good thing about the taco slices was that there was a ton of stuff on them, and it was like having an entire salad on each slice, as well as globs of meat and cheese stuck together.

I like when we have something to eat before the hike is over. Then we can walk off some of the crap we'd just eaten. The only problem this time was that it was so cold outside. We left the pizza place and headed north beneath the railroad tracks, which I thought was the light rail, but wasn't. The light rail actually parallels it on a newer trestle.

As we reached the station, several members of the group, including I believe Dan and Justin, had their tickets they'd purchased in the morning nearly ruined by the rain. Both of their tickets were wet and had half of the print off of them gone altogether! I think they must have worked alright though. I ran up the stairs, and someone else did too, I forget who, while the rest of the group rode the elevator up to the top. I of course got there first.

It was actually a good thing Craig recommended we get those tickets in the morning, because the train was sitting on the tracks ready to be boarded when we got there. No waiting at all, we simply stepped onto the train. We were worried that Dan and Sue wouldn't make it, and just as I was calling Dan's cell, he and Sue got onto the train.

I was pretty tired, and my back had been bothering me, and so I sat backwards on the seat to get a different kind of stretch. I could also see out the window pretty well.

In most trains, you hear the name of the station stop, but on this train there was no such sound or even an overhead thing saying which station it was. We made several stops, and I happened to glance out the window to the left and saw "Liberty State Park" on a little black sign with white writing. I shouted out "This is our stop!!" and everyone got up quick. Had I not noticed this small, somewhat obscure station stop, we'd have had to ride the train all the way back from another location.

And so we completed another little piece of the series to cover the entire perimeter of NJ. The diversity of these hikes, and all of them really, is amazing. As far as urban hikes go, this one I thought was a real winner. When we get the chance to cover new ground, to improvise the route, and to see historic structures, ruins, landscape and architecture along the way (and of course laugh a lot and other silliness) we've achieved what we set out to do.

As of this hike, there are 27 more hikes to do in order to cover the entire perimeter of NJ. I'd found out from Craig that I must re-do the Hudson River Waterfront Walkway on the east side because new sections have opened, and we might be able to improve upon the route as well.