Parks
Hudson has many county parks, including Hudson County Park, Mercer Park, Lincoln Park, Washington Park, Columbus Park, and North Hudson Park, West Hudson Park and the newest, Laurel Hill.
There are many municipal parks and plazas, some of which were developed as "city squares" during the 19th century, such as Hamilton Park, Church Square Park and Ellsworth (locally known as Pigeon) Park.
The German-American Volksfest has taken place annually since 1874 at Schuetzen Park This private park and the many nearby cemeteries-Flower Hill Cemetery, Grove Church Cemetery, Hoboken Cemetery, Macphelah Cemetery and Weehawken Cemetery that characterize the western slope create the "green lung" of North Hudson County.
Pershing Field and the adjacent reservoir constitute one of the largest "green spaces" in the county. The reservoir, no longer in use, is site of a planned recreation area/nature preserve. Hackensack Number Two, the other remaining reservoir in Weehawken Heights, is not accessible to the public. Extensive athletic fields opened in 2009 in Weehawken and Union City, the latter on the site of the former Roosevelt Stadium.
Promenades are being developed along the rivers. The Hudson River Waterfront Walkway and Hackensack RiverWalk. Sections of the Secaucus Greenway are in place and eventually will connect different districts of the town including the North End, site Schmidts Woods (which contains an original hard wood forest) and Mill Creek Point Park, and Harmon Meadow Plaza. Kearny Riverbank Park runs along the Passaic River. The future of the Harsimus Stem Embankment is uncertain, though many community groups hope the landmark will be opened to the public as elevated greenway, possibly as part of East Coast Greenway.
Liberty State Park, the county's largest, is sited on land that had once been part of a vast oyster bed, was landfilled for industrial, rail, and maritime uses, and was reclaimed in the 1970s. Ellis Island and Liberty Island, a national protected area and home to the Statue of Liberty National Monument, lie entirely within Hudson's waters across from Liberty State Park, from which ferry service is available.
The New Jersey Meadowlands Commission has designated several areas within its juridisction as wetlands preservation zones including the Riverbend Wetlands Preserve, Eastern Bracish Marsh, and Kearny Marsh an extension of De Korte Park, home of the Meadowlands Environment Center.
Read more about this topic: Hudson County, New Jersey
Famous quotes containing the word parks:
“Towns are full of people, houses full of tenants, hotels full of guests, trains full of travelers, cafés full of customers, parks full of promenaders, consulting-rooms of famous doctors full of patients, theatres full of spectators, and beaches full of bathers. What previously was, in general, no problem, now begins to be an everyday one, namely, to find room.”
—José Ortega Y Gasset (1883–1955)
“Perhaps our own woods and fields,—in the best wooded towns, where we need not quarrel about the huckleberries,—with the primitive swamps scattered here and there in their midst, but not prevailing over them, are the perfection of parks and groves, gardens, arbors, paths, vistas, and landscapes. They are the natural consequence of what art and refinement we as a people have.... Or, I would rather say, such were our groves twenty years ago.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)