PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD HARSIMUS STEM EMBANKMENT COALITION INC

Hello, my name is Jake Lefeber. I was raised in Hoboken, New Jersey, and have just settled back into my beloved hometown! Over the past several months, I have been training to participate in a Triathlon. My goal is to help preserve the environment & history of Jersey City, by running to raise awareness for the Jersey City Harsimus Branch & Embankment on 6th Street.

A historic rail line and its monumental stone Embankment on 6th Street — critical environmental assets for Jersey City — have existed under a long-standing threat of destruction from private redevelopment. For the last 25 years, the Embankment Preservation Coalition has been fighting to ensure their preservation as a model of sustainable reuse of old infrastructure.

During the late 19th- and early 20th-centuries, Jersey City, owing to its proximity to New York, was a major rail terminus. Freight and passengers continued across the Hudson River by boat. By 1910, however, rail tunnels opened under the Hudson. These were followed by tunnels for motor vehicles. Rail use dwindled. As the area transformed from stock yards and terminals into residential and commercial neighborhoods, some unused rail structures have remained.

The Harsimus Branch Embankment is one such structure. An elevated part of a longer rail line, this series of massive stone structures occupies six city blocks in Downtown Jersey City. During the rail line’s decades of inactivity, naturally seeded meadows and forests were able to take root and flourish. The Embankment is now not only a thriving and self-sustaining ecosystem, it also provides critical resources for the city and its people. The Embankment helps mitigate heat Island effects, captures rainwater to reduce flooding, and functions as a carbon sink. Advocates from Jersey City and beyond are working toward the transportation corridor becoming a public urban preserve and greenway for walking and bicycling.