The Gateway Region is the primary urbanized area of the northeastern section of the U.S. state of New Jersey. The region is anchored by Newark, the state's most populous city, and constitutes part of the New York metropolitan area.
The area encompasses Bergen, Essex, Hudson, Passaic, Union, and Middlesex counties. It is the most urban part of the state, with a population of more than four million, and is home to most of its larger cities, though much housing was originally developed as suburbs of neighboring New York City. It is home to Ellis Island, the "gateway" through which many immigrants entered the United States, many of whom chose to stay in the region, which continues to be the port of entry and first home to many born abroad, making it one of the most ethnically diverse of the nation. It may also be the most socio-economically diverse, with some of the biggest pockets of poverty and most exclusive of suburbs in the state.
The designation Gateway Region has not caught on in local parlance, as the topography and self-identification of the residents tend not to correspond to the collective name. The terms North Jersey and Central Jersey are used in describing parts of the Gateway. The name may have been taken from the 1960s Newark nickname Gateway City after the newly developed Gateway Center downtown. Amtrak's high-speed rail project throughout the region is called Gateway. It is one of seven tourism regions established by the New Jersey State Department of Tourism, the others being the Greater Atlantic City Region, the Southern Shore Region, the Delaware River Region, the Shore Region, Central Jersey Region, and the Skylands Region. The Gateway National Recreation Area, though not located inside the Gateway Region, is nearby.
Geography The Gateway Region is home to six of New Jersey's largest municipalities: Newark, Jersey City, Paterson, Elizabeth, Woodbridge Township, and Edison. Major rivers and the bays include the Hudson River/Upper New York Bay, the Hackensack River and the Passaic River/Newark Bay, and the Raritan. The topography of the area is quite varied, with the Palisades and the Meadowlands in the northeast, the hills and valleys of the Watchung Mountains in the west, the Ramapo Mountains in the north, and tidal plains of the Raritan to the south. The confluence of the roads and railways of the Northeast Megalopolis make the region very heavily traveled. Chemical Coast is a nickname for the heavily industrial area along the Arthur Kill. Though there are broad distinctions between cities, suburbs, heavy industry, light manufacturing, recreational "green spaces", nature preserves, and retail, transportation, and maritime infrastructure, the landscape is characterized by their close proximity to each other, as is typical of urban sprawl.
History Lenape and New Netherland The Gateway Region was the territory of the Lenape Native Americans. Later called Delaware Indian, this collection of Algonquian-language speaking people included the Hackensack, Raritan, and Tappan. They are recalled in the countless number of place names given by them to towns, hills, and bodies of water. Much of the land was "purchased" by Dutch and English from the Lenape, though this concept of "ownership" was foreign to them. The Lenape retreated to the west as settlements grew, and "agreed" to re-locate in 1766 with the Treaty of Easton, though the Ramapough Mountain Indians say they descend from them.
Henry Hudson, an Englishman sailing for the Dutch East India Company anchored his ship the Halve Maen (Half Moon) at Sandy Hook and Weehawken Cove in 1609. The area became part of the colonial province of New Netherland with headquarters in New Amsterdam. In 1630 the patroonship Pavonia was established and 1660, after series of confrontations with the Lenape, that the first chartered village was established on the west bank of the North River at Bergen Square, creating the oldest municipality in the state. Descendants of the New Netherlanders spread across North Jersey, and influenced its development and character for generations.
Colonial America
When the English entered New York Harbor in 1664, a negotiated surrender (which guaranteed religious tolerance and protection of private property) was made to transfer control of the area to the British crown. Elizabethtown was founded as the capitol and became the first officially English-speaking settlement, named after the wife of the province's proprietor, Sir George Cateret. In 1666, Newark was established by Puritans from Connecticut. By 1675, the region become the proprietary colony of East Jersey (establishing a border with New York State, which was formalized in 1738). It was partitioned into four counties for administrative purposes: Bergen County, Essex County, Middlesex County and Monmouth County. Settlement remained sparse, though some towns were created within farming communities and along rivers and bays. Among them are Perth Amboy in 1684, Hackensack and PiscatawayThe area was first settled in 1666 by Quakers and Baptists who had left the Puritan colony in New Hampshire. Cheslow, Jerry. " If You're Thinking of Living in: Piscataway", The New York Times, June 28, 1992. Retrieved June 28, 2007. in 1693, and New Brunswick in 1736 (which later became home to Rutgers University). During the 18th century, migration inland increased along the Horseneck Tract and Raritan Valley. Slavery and indenture were encouraged to populate the area. The third public reading of The Declaration of Independence took place in New Brunswick, but many East Jerseyans became Tories. Several battles of American Revolution took place in the region including those at Connecticut Farms, Bound Brook, and Paulus Hook.
Invention, industry and immigration
The first steam engine in America was introduced at the Schuyler Copper Mine on New Barbadoes Neck in 1755. In 1791, Alexander Hamilton helped found the Society for the Establishment of Useful Manufactures (S.U.M.), which encouraged the harnessing of the water power of the Great Falls of the Passaic and to secure economic independence from British manufacturers. Paterson, which was founded by the society, became the cradle of the industrial revolution in America, supported in part by the Morris Canal built in the 1820s. A century later Thomas Edison, the Wizard of Menlo Park, made his mark.History of Northern New Jersey from Rt23.com In 1872 the Singer Manufacturing Company of New York opened a factory in Elizabethport along Trumbull Street next to the intersection of the CNJ mainline with the Perth Amboy and Elizabethport Branch. Many discoveries and inventions, or application or mass production of them, were made in the Gateway Region including the steam engine, the revolver, the incandescent light bulb, the phonograph, the rocket engine, and the electric railway. It is the site of the first automobile and first submarine in the United States. It can claim to the birthplace of baseball and the American film industry, Television to the home was first broadcast in the Gateway.UCLA Film and Television Archive Television Programs Preserved 1988 - 2000. University of California, Los Angeles. Retrieved February 18, 2007.
The latter half of the 19th century saw an explosion of the population. German immigration to the United States after 1848 gave the parts of the region a distinctly German flavor. Rail lines which still cross-cross the region, led to the development of the shipping industry at the North River (Hudson River), Newark Bay, and Kill van Kull, and the beginnings of suburban developments such as Llewellyn Park. Streetcar suburbs also began to develop elsewhere.
The Bayway Refinery, which started in 1907, is the nation's northernmost and is along the corridor with other heavy industry. It was at this time that the Chemical Coast began to be developed. The Paterson Silk Strike took place in 1913. The Hudson Waterfront became home to heavy industry and shipping. Among the industries that would prosper in the first half of the 20th century were Alcoa Aluminum, the Ford Motor Company, Lever Brothers, Valvoline Oil Co. and Archer-Daniels-Midland.Hall, Edgewater, p. 28 and pp. 33-37
World Wars
While immigration to Ellis Island decreased the population continued to grow, in part due to the Great Migration. Upon entry into World War I, the US government took the Hamburg-American Line piers in Hoboken under eminent domain, which became the major point of embarkation for more than three million soldiers, known as "doughboys". Camp Merritt was established in Cresskill for troop staging.Camp Merritt Accessed May 6, 2009. In 1916, an act of sabotage literally and figuratively shook the region when German agents set off bombs at the munitions depot in New York Bay at Black Tom.Black Tom Info from New Jersey City University Accessed May 6, 2009. Another act of sabotage known as the Kingsland explosion occurred on January 11, 1917.Kingsland Explosion Accessed May 6, 2009. The T. A. Gillespie Company Shell Loading Plant explosion, though not considered sabotage, also caused tremendous damage.
The forerunner of Port Authority of New York and New Jersey was established on April 30, 1921.Port Authority Accessed May 6, 2009. Huge transportation projects opened between the wars: The Holland Tunnel in 1927, The George Washington Bridge in 1931, The Bayonne Bridge in 1931, and The Lincoln Tunnel in 1937, allowing vehicular travel between New Jersey and New York City to bypass the waterfront. Hackensack River crossings, notably the Pulaski Skyway, were also built. Newark Airport was the first major airport in the New York Metropolitan Area, opening on October 1, 1928. At Houvenkopf Mountain crosses were burned by the Ku Klux Klan. Radburn was founded in 1929 as "a town for the motor age".History from the Radburn Association website The Kearney Works of Western Electric kept the plant running with "make work" program, similar to WPA projects.
The region played an important role in the World War II effort. PT boats were manufactured by Elco in Bayonne.Elco Accessed May 6, 2009. Military Ocean Terminal at Bayonne (MOTBY) was opened in 1942 as a U.S. military base (remained in operation until 1999). Accessed May 6, 2009. General Motors produced planes at Linden Assembly.The Federal Shipbuilding and Drydock Company would produce over thirty ships before its closing in 1949.Kearny Yard. In 1946, the baseball color line was first crossed at Roosevelt Stadium by Jackie Robinson.
Post-war prosperity and urban decline
The Second Great Migration and the G.I. Bill changed the social geography as well as the physical geography of the Gateway. Planned and built during the 1950s Port Newark-Elizabeth Marine Terminal is the first and largest container port in the eastern United States. Direct distance dialing (DDD) was introduced on November 10, 1951, in Englewood, AT&T. Accessed June 8, 2007. "Nov. 10, 1951: Mayor M. Leslie Downing of Englewood, N.J., picked up a telephone and dialed 10 digits. Eighteen seconds later, he reached Mayor Frank Osborne in Alameda, Calif. The mayors made history as they chatted in the first customer-dialed long-distance call, one that introduced area codes." The northern parts of the New Jersey Turnpike were opened between 1952 and 1956. The metropolitan section (north of the Driscoll Bridge) of the Garden State Parkway was completed in 1957. Bergen Town Center was the first mall in New Jersey, opened in 1957, soon followed by Westfield Garden State Plaza. and The Mall at Short Hills. Port Newark-Elizabeth Marine Terminal became the nation's first container terminal in 1958, and was for many years its busiest. The Newark Riots and the Plainfield Riots took place in 1967.
Pre- and post-millennium