Discovering the Other New York

What a perfect day was Friday 6-10-16 to take on a new trip ……Jersey City, Liberty Park. My start point as usual was Astoria park ….rode to Long Island City, East River Ferry to 11 Wall St, connected to the NY Waterway ferry to Paulus Hook and Jersey City’s beautiful waterfront downtown area where I found my way to wonderful Liberty Park as you can hit Ellis and Liberty Islands with a “stones throw” from there …..and awesome views of the New York and Jersey City sky lines.
What I found most interesting however was New Jersey’s memorial to 911 with its “Empty Sky Memorial”, The closed landmark “Central Railroad of New Jersey Terminal”, which accommodated many Immigrants from Ellis Island, and the statue of a WW 2 soldier holding a concentration camp survivor (Liberation) lined up with the Statue of Liberty in my photo.
Later I toured the Jersey City downtown area. Jersey City is now taking the overflow from those priced out of Brooklyn and Manhattan (see link). With it’s proximity to downtown Manhattan and good Hudson River transportation systems it did not take long for it to get noticed ….as home prices and rentals are rising fast. Hipsters and young white professionals pushing strollers mingle with the indigenous diversity ….and Jersey City is known to be one of the most diverse city’s in the US. Van Voorst Park anchors an upper middle class area that is “Brooklyn like” with it’s turn of the century row houses and brown stones, many of which are being renovated in lieu of the coming gentrification. As I photoed one brownstone being renovated I was approached by the owner and we chatted …. and he reminded me of the early 70’s and how many burned out and abandoned homes were being offered up for a dollar. I do remember that happening in Brooklyn and just wished I was awake then.