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Jersey City Free Books
NEW JERSEY
A Guide To Its Present And Past
Compiled and Written by the Federal Writers' Project of the
Works Progress Administration for the State of New Jersey
American Guide Series
Originally published in 1939
Some of this information may no longer be current and in that case is presented for historical interest only.
Edited by GET NJ, COPYRIGHT 2003
Tour 1
Fairview
FAIRVIEW, 4.8 miles (20 alt., 9,067 pop.), is announced by the acrid
smell from a bleachery. A few hundred yards from the highway (R) is a
scattered group of 54 small gray buildings, the INTERNATIONAL FIREWORKS Co. PLANT, one of the largest manufacturers of display fireworks.
Here were made the elaborate fireworks for the inaugurals of Presidents
Wilson, Hoover, and Roosevelt. Routine business is the making of "True
Lovers' Knots" and "Fountains of Youth" for use at conventions of fraternal orders and for civic celebrations.
Between Fairview and North Bergen the route passes a CEMETERY (L),
and an adjacent MONUMENT WORKS that sells bird baths and bridge
prizes as a side line. At 6.4 m. the twin towers of radio station WINS at
Carlstadt are about 3 miles R.
On the upward slope (L) are rocky outcroppings of the underlying
Palisades, upon which small houses and shacks barely find a foothold.
Below, on the valley's edge (R), are a refrigerator terminal and a round-
house of the N. Y. Central R.R.
At 7.9 miles is the junction with Bergen Pike, a concrete paved road.
Left on Bergen Pike, a well-posted road, to the junction with Hudson Blvd. East,
1.5 miles
- Right on Hudson Blvd. East and R. down a ramp to the LINCOLN TUNNEL,
1.7 miles (toll 50¢ for car and passengers), opened December 22, 5937. Until a second
tube is finished in 1940, the 5,255-foot tunnel will carry two-way traffic. Construction of the second half of the project, a 7,400-foot tube, will bring the total cost to
475,000,000. Built 60 feet under the low-water level of the Hudson River, Lincoln
Tunnel was designed by Port of New York Authority engineers as a direct link
with mid-town Manhattan.
- Left on Hudson Blvd. East to (R) the SITE OF THE HAMILTON-BURR DUEL,
2.2 miles, near the bottom of the cliff at Hudson Blvd. East opposite Doer Pl., indicated by a marker in a small park on the brink of the Palisades. The residential
section of Weehawken is on the cliff; 300 feet below, railroad tracks have been
built on a narrow strip of land, bordered by the Hudson on the one side and the
ordeal escarpment on the other. Here, on the same spot where his son, Philip, had
been killed in a duel 3 years earlier, Alexander Hamilton was mortally wounded by
Aaron Burr, then Vice President of the United States, on the morning of July as,
1804. For 15 years the two men had been political enemies, but it was not until
Hamilton's libelous criticisms reached the press that Burr issued the challenge. Burr
appeared on the grounds before Hamilton with his second and the surgeon. As the
duellists were preparing, Hamilton stopped the proceedings to put on his spectacles.
The two men fired in succession at the command, "Present!"; Hamilton's bullet
passed through the limb of a cedar about 12 feet above the ground, while Burr's
shot caught his opponent in the breast. Hamilton rose on his toes, twisted and fell
to the ground. As Burr left the field, shielded by an umbrella to conform with the
technicality of remaining unrecognized, he heard Hamilton exclaim: "This is a mortal wound, Doctor. I am a dead man!" Burr's comment was prophetic. "He may
thank me," he said. "I made him a great man." Hamilton died on the afternoon of
the following day. Inflamed by the press to view Burr as a murderer, both New
York and New Jersey indicted him. Burr fled first to Pennsylvania, but threats of
extradition and lynch mobs sent him to the aristocratic South, where the duelling
code was respected. There he stayed until Congress reconvened and the temper of
the country had cooled.
About 200 yards south, on Hamilton Ave., is the ALEXANDER HAMILTON MONUMENT, a stone base surmounted by a bronze bust of the first Secretary of the
Treasury.
Hamilton - Burr Duel Marker, Weehwken
The Hudson River Is Jersey City's Arena For Water Sports!
