Lincoln Park
Hudson County’s great public work of the 1890’s was Hudson (now Kennedy) Boulevard, a 20-mile landscaped roadway running through the county. Construction caused the demolition or relocation of many buildings and was completed in 1895. The road marked the Bergen section as the most desirable in Jersey City. Elaborate homes faced the boulevard and side streets. Beginning in 1905 Hudson County’s Park Commission began to turn Glendale Woods and surrounding area, an unsightly swamp, into the 208 acre West Side Park. Under landscape architects Charles Lowrie and Daniel Langton, terraces, ponds, athletic fields, statues, fountains and flower gardens were built. To create a mall and view of the Orange Mountains a block of buildings were moved from Belmont Avenue. Some were placed on new foundations on Communipaw Avenue. The 1930 statue of Lincoln was sponsored by the Lincoln Association of Jersey City (1865), oldest group of its kind in the nation. The park contains a lake, a classic fountain, pavilions, and memorials to Jersey City’s Union Civil War veterans and firemen. Nearby are prime residential streets of Gifford and Bentley Avenues, the 1925 Temple Beth-El and the 1909 Saint Aloysius Church, a 900 seat French Renaissance edifice. Its 150 foot bell tower has been a landmark for generations.
Marker is at the intersection of Belmont Avenue and West Side Avenue, on the left when traveling west on Belmont Avenue.
Courtesy hmdb.org
