Calendar of Events…

Spring 2017

Cliff NotesVisitor letter for the Palisades Interstate Park

in New Jersey

Copyright © 2017 Palisades Interstate Park Commission

New

Jersey Offi

cesP.O

. Box 155A

lpine, NJ 07620

Palisades In

terstate

Park C

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miss ion

Palisades Interstate Park in New JerseyCalendar of Events • Spring 2017

For a complete calendar of events, directions, and more: njpalisades.org/calendarUnless noted, all programs are free and open to all, and advance registration is NOT required.

Sunday, april 2

“Palisades Meet-Up Clean-Up” • Volunteer cleanup with park staff • 10 AM to 1 PM at Ross Dock Picnic Area in Fort Lee. For more information: 201-615-9226.

Saturday, april 8

“Peanut Leap Cascade” • History hike with Eric Nelsen • Meet 10 AM at State Line Lookout in Alpine. About 3 mi., 2 hrs., moderate. For more information: 201-768-1360 ext. 108.

tueSday, april 11

“Pink Moon Hike” • Guided hike with Christina Fehre • Meet 7:30 PM at State Line Lookout in Alpine. About 2.5 mi., 1.5 hrs., easy. Bring a flashlight. For more information: 201-615-9226.

Saturday, april 22

“Hooked on the Hudson” • Annual fishing contest, exhibits & more with the Hudson River Fishermen’s Association • 8 AM to 3 PM at Ross Dock Picnic Area in Fort Lee. Equipment and bait provided. For more information: hrfanj.org.

“Power on the Hudson: The Historic Battle to Save Storm King Mountain” • Book talk & signing with Robert Lifset • 5:30 PM at Fort Lee Historic Park. Sponsored with the NY/NJ Trail Conference. For more information: 201-512-9348 ext. 813.

Sunday, april 23

“Visitors’ Day at Greenbrook Sanctuary” • Open-house day for non-members to learn about Greenbrook Sanctuary and its programs • 12 to 3 PM at Greenbrook Sanctuary in Tenafly. For more information: 201-784-0484.

Sunday, May 7

“Palisades Meet-Up Clean-Up” • Volunteer cleanup with park staff • 10 AM to 1 PM at State Line Lookout in Alpine. For more information: 201-615-9226.

Friday, May 12

“Flower Moon Beach Campfire” • 8 to 11 PM at the beach at the north end of Alpine Picnic Area & Boat Basin. Bring a blanket or chair. For more information: 201-768-1360.

Saturday, May 13

“The Giant Stairs” • Guided hike & rock scramble with Christina Fehre • Meet 10 AM at State Line Lookout in Alpine. About 4 mi., 3 hrs., challenging. Experienced hikers only. For more information: 201-615-9226.

Sunday, May 14“Mother’s Day Hike to the Women’s Monument” • Guided hike with Eric Nelsen • Meet 11 AM at Park Headquarters in Alpine. About 4 mi., 2 hrs., easy. For more information: 201-768-1360 ext. 108.

Saturday, May 20“Geology Rocks!” • Children’s hike with Christina Fehre • Meet 11 AM by the entrance to Englewood Picnic Area & Boat Basin. About 2 mi., 2 hrs., easy. For age 5 and up. Children must be accompanied by an adult. For more information: 201-615-9226.

“Music on the Rocks” • An evening of classic rock with Kid Thadillac • 7 to 10 PM at State Line Lookout in Alpine. $5 admission. Lookout Inn open for food and snacks, or bring your own picnic! BYOB. For more information: 201-750-0465. Rain Date: May 27.

Saturday, June 3“National Trails Day: Construction History of the NJ Palisades Trails” • Guided hike with Christina Fehre & the Trail Crew • Meet 9:30 AM at Ross Dock Picnic Area in Fort Lee. $10 parking. About 4 mi., 3 hrs., moderate. For more information: 201-615-9226.

Sunday, June 4“Palisades Meet-Up Clean-Up” • Volunteer cleanup with park staff • 10 AM to 1 PM at Englewood Picnic Area & Boat Basin. For more information: 201-615-9226.

“Hudson River Barn Dance” • Open barn dance with Dave Harvey & The Backyard Boys • 2 to 4 PM at Alpine Pavilion at the north end of Alpine Picnic Area & Boat Basin. $5 parking. $1 hot dogs! For more information: 201-768-1360 ext. 108.

Friday, June 9“Strawberry Moon Hike” • Guided hike with Christina Fehre • Meet 8:30 PM by the entrance to Alpine Picnic Area & Boat Basin. About 3 mi., 2 hrs., easy. Bring a flashlight. For more information: 201-615-9226.

Saturday, June 10“Music on the Rocks” • An evening of jazz with The Steve Kaiser Quartet • 7 to 10 PM at State Line Lookout in Alpine. $5 admission. Lookout Inn open for food and snacks, or bring your own picnic! BYOB. For more information: 201-750-0465. Rain Date: June 17.

tueSday, June 20“Solstice Hike” • Guided hike with Eric Nelsen • Meet 7 PM at the Kearney House at Alpine Picnic Area & Boat Basin. About 5 mi., 2 hrs., moderate. Bring a flashlight. For more information: 201-768-1360 ext. 108.

On the

Drive

Cyclists on Henry Hudson Drive, by Anthony Taranto. Visit njpalisades.org for more images.

A bike ride on Henry Hudson Drive—the seven-mile roadway through the southern half of this park—is more than just good exercise. It puts you

in touch with the story of the Palisades.Heading north from the Edgewater park

entrance, the first mile of the Drive curves beneath the Fort Lee bluff—where the Con-tinental Army placed its batteries in the fall of 1776—then ducks behind the legs of the George Washington Bridge, straddling the river there like a giant steel brontosaur, its belly rumbling full of traffic. The Drive keeps a slow grade down and down—and into the forgotten heart of the enormous Carpenter Brothers’ quarry. A wide circle in the Drive, providing access to Ross Dock Picnic Area below, marks where, in the 1890s, a crew of three hundred men labored with muscle and dynamite, week in and week out, to pull down the mountainside. Stop a moment and con-sider: the sunlit space of this circle was once embedded within an unimaginable weight of cold stone. Here, and at similar quarries up the river, toppled columns of the Palisades were crushed into gravel-sized pieces. Big conveyer belts loaded the crushed stone onto barges, to be shipped as far away as New Or-leans. But by 1900, public protest, led by New Jersey’s Women’s Clubs, pushed the govern-ments of New York and New Jersey to come together, to form a unique Interstate Com-mission, and to stand against the “vandals” at the quarries. By Christmastime that same year, the new Commission was able to halt the quarrying here—and to begin to turn the bat-tered riverfront into a public park.

Two miles in, and you finally get to the base of that first long hill—and the edge of the Hudson. Now it’s 1912: the year the Interstate Commission first proposed a road from the “top of the Cliffs at the head of Palisades Av-enue at Englewood, running down the face of the Palisades” to Englewood Landing—here—to connect with a ferry that would cross

the river from the base of Dyckman Street in Manhattan. Known as Dyckman Hill Road, this steep and winding section of the Drive (bicycles must be walked on the upper por-tions) follows a carriage road, which had in turn been built around 1870 for the Pali-sades Moun-tain House, a grand hotel on the summit (the Mountain House burned down in 1884). Workers spent two years wid-ening and im-proving the old road, cutting into the cliff face, building the tall gray stone walls alongside the roadway. They even installed streetlamps, so the new ferry service could run late into the night. By 1930, over a million vehi-cles crossed on this ferry each y e a r — a l o n g with many more pedes-trians, most of them departing the city to come to the new park, with its bustling picnic ar-eas, campgrounds, and riverfront bathing beaches.

For the next mile, as they extended the Drive north from Dyckman Hill, the work-ers were able to make use of another old carriage road, “Undercliff Avenue.” At the junction they’d hang a big wooden sign that

warned you were about to enter a “narrow winding mo-tor trail.” For some years, an old one-room s c h o o l h o u s e stood just be-yond the junc-tion, and the noted painter Van Deering Perrine rented it from the C o m m i s s i o n for his winter studio. (Per-rine had urged the president of the Com-mission not to build the new road, fearing it would spoil the wildness of the Palisades he loved so.) The “Und e rc l i f f ” section dipped back down to river level, where a hand-ful of houses still stood at the old docks,

home to the last residents of what had been known as “Fish-ermen’s Village.” This became the site of the park’s Undercliff Picnic Area and Bathing

Beach (a big stone bathhouse was built there in 1922—cyclists glimpse the ruins as they glide above on the Drive). At the end of “Un-dercliff Avenue,” as winter brought construc-tion to a halt, the workers built a turn-around. (This wide spot in the Drive was later used as a parking space for a beach area below it: “Canoe Beach Circle” still exists, the “circle to nowhere” at about the midpoint of the Drive.) The next year, 1916, they had to break new ground, climbing back up the talus slope—until they met their biggest challenge yet.

The Commission’s chief engineer was A. K. Morgan, and it was he who designed the single-span concrete bridge that crosses 250 dizzy feet above the base of Greenbrook Falls. Finished a century ago, it forms the apex of the main part of the Drive.

About a mile past Greenbrook Falls you fall back in time again—all the way to the Revolu-tion: on November 20, 1776, a British Army of five thousand men, under the command of General Charles Cornwallis, crossed the Hudson from New York to land at the “New Dock”—later called “Huyler’s Landing.” They climbed a farm road—now a hiking trail that crosses Henry Hudson Drive here—to attack Fort Lee. (The Americans at Fort Lee were just able to escape capture, in what became known to history as their “Retreat to Victory”…)

Another mile, another circle: right goes down to Alpine Landing; left goes up one fi-nal mile to the summit. This part of the Drive, “Alpine Approach Road,” opened in 1923 for a ferry service from Yonkers. (Never as busy as the Dyckman ferry, the Yonkers ferry never-theless carried up to half a million vehicles a year during the height of its operation.)

A century of steady use—by cyclists and pe-destrians, as well as the “motorists” for whom it was designed—not to mention the endless pummeling of rock slides—and the Drive re-mains a favorite feature in the park: a secret treasure of Bergen County, hidden in plain sight of the great metropolis across the river.

1909 “HENRY HUDSON DRIVE” first proposed.1912 Construction begins from summit to Englewood Landing,

following old Palisade Mountain House carriage road.1915 Englewood approach completed in July. Ferry service

from Dyckman Street in Manhattan to Englewood Land-ing commences. Construction begins north from Engle-wood Landing, following “Undercliff Avenue.”

1916 Construction of new roadway along talus slope north of “Undercliff Avenue” begins.

1917 Construction of bridge over Greenbrook Falls completed. Additional construction halted due to lack of funding.

1921 Construction of Henry Hudson Drive between Engle-wood and Alpine completed in the fall.

1922 Construction of Alpine Approach section of Henry Hud-son Drive to Alpine Landing completed.

1923 Ferry service from Yonkers to Alpine Landing commenc-es. Construction of Henry Hudson Drive south from Englewood Landing to Fort Lee begins.

1927 Work on southern portion halted during construction of George Washington Bridge.

1930 Construction resumes, using unemployed Bergen County men as part of local Depression relief efforts.

1934 New construction continues on southern portion with aid of Civil Works Administration (CWA). Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) builds retaining walls above northern portion.

1935 New construction continues on southern portion with Works Progress Administration (WPA), which also make improvements in northern portion.

1938 Henry Hudson Drive completed to Ross Dock turn-around.1940 Henry Hudson Drive construction completed. Full roadway,

from Edgewater to Alpine, opens to the public in August.