Shippen Street (Weehawken) facts for kids
 |
|
|---|---|
The second hairpin turn on Shippen Street
|
|
| Part of |  CR 682 |
| Namesake | William W. Shippen |
| Owner | Township of Weehawken |
| Maintained by | Weehawken Public Works |
| Length | 0.32 mi (0.51 km) |
| Location | Weehawken |
| Coordinates | 40°45′54″N 74°01′32″W / 40.76500°N 74.02556°W |
| West end |  CR 685 (Palisade Avenue) in Weehawken |
| East end |  CR 691 (Hackensack Plank Road) in Weehawken |
| North | Dodd Street |
| South | Oak Street |
Shippen Street is a street in Weehawken, New Jersey. It runs from west to east. The eastern part of the street has a special section with two sharp turns, called a double hairpin turn. This part is made of cobblestone and is listed on the New Jersey Register of Historic Places. Shippen Street was built in the early 1900s. It is part of Weehawken Heights, which is a neighborhood with many homes.
Contents
About Shippen Street
Shippen Street starts in the west at Palisade Avenue. Right across the city line in Union City, this street becomes 24th Street. Shippen Street also forms the northern edge of Elsworth Park, which is an old city park.
The street gently goes downhill as you travel east. It crosses Hudson Avenue (which goes north) and Gregory Avenue (which goes south). At its eastern end, Shippen Street offers amazing views. You can see the Lincoln Tunnel Approach and Helix and, across the Hudson River, the Empire State Building and the New York City skyline.
Near its end, Shippen Street becomes a one-way street going east. It finishes at Hackensack Plank Road. The entire street is about 1,690 feet long.
History of Shippen Street
Shippen Street is named after William W. Shippen. He owned a lot of land in Weehawken Heights. This land was next to properties owned by the Hoboken Land and Improvement Company. William W. Shippen was the president of this company for 21 years.
In the late 1800s, many German immigrants lived in this area. There were several meeting places in the Union Hill area. The biggest meeting hall, called The New Casino, was on Shippen Street.
Even though Shippen Street now ends at Palisades Avenue, its name used to stretch further. It went at least as far as Central Avenue. At one point, there was an idea to use a 200-foot deep shaft, built for railroad tunnels, as a train station. This station would have helped many people in North Hudson travel to Pennsylvania Station in Manhattan. In 1904, scientists looked at the area, but the station was never built on Shippen Street.
A few years later, in 1907, a fire broke out in the North River Tunnels. Workers had to escape through the Shippen Street opening. Eleven men were missing at first, but they were found alive. They had breathed air from a special pipe to survive. While some were hurt, no one died.
The Cool 'Horseshoe' Turns
At the eastern end of Shippen Street, there's a unique part of the road with two sharp turns. This section connects Shippen Street to Hackensack Plank Road, which is much lower. People have called it "The Horseshoe" or the "Lombard Street of the East Coast" because of its winding shape.
Engineers had to create these turns because the hill was too steep for a straight road. A direct connection would have been too dangerous for people, carriages, or cars. This special section was added to the New Jersey Register of Historic Places on December 8, 1997.
The turns start with a 90-degree bend, which is paved with concrete. After the second turn, which is a 180-degree turn, the road changes to cobblestone. The third turn is also a 180-degree turn and is surrounded by an old stone wall. The last turn leads onto Hackensack Plank Road. If you're going south, this turn is another 180 degrees, and it's where the cobblestone road ends. This one-way winding road is about 440 feet long.
On the north side of the turns, there's a staircase. It connects the upper and lower parts of the turns, so people walking can avoid the road. These stairs were used by many workers who went to factories on Gregory Avenue.
One factory overlooking the "Horseshoe" was S. Blickman & Co. They made stainless steel products there for about 70 years. They made steel for many ships built in nearby shipyards, especially during World War II. Later, the factory building was turned into apartments in the 1980s.
Another factory, Robert Reiner & Co., was nearby. They imported and changed Swiss embroidery machines. Hudson County was a big center for the embroidery industry in the early 1900s. During the time these factories were busy, Shippen Street was the only local street wide enough for large trucks to make the turns. These trucks brought in steel and carried away big finished products. Because of this, no parking was allowed on Gregory Avenue until the factories closed.
Shippen Steps
At the end of Shippen Street, right across from the double hairpin turns, are the Shippen Steps. These are outdoor public stairs that go down the Palisades Cliffs. They start on Hackensack Plank Road and end at Park Avenue. There are 96 steps, and they stretch about 250 feet diagonally.
In the past, these steps helped people get to Weehawken's first town hall and the old police station. The police station was built in 1890 and had a jail cell on the first floor. Later, this building became a meeting place for the VFW. In 2009, the town decided to fix up the building, and it is now the Weehawken Historical Society Museum.
Across the street at the bottom of the steps, there is a granite wall that looks over the art deco entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel. The Shippen Steps have a long history.
Transportation
New Jersey Transit Bus Route 123 stops at the top of Shippen Street along Palisade Avenue. This bus goes between the Port Authority Bus Terminal in New York City and Christ Hospital in Jersey City Heights. A few blocks south is the Marginal Highway. This is a main road for traffic going between North Hudson and the Lincoln Tunnel.
On the other side, the Shippen Stairs end about 0.25 miles from the Hudson Bergen Light Rail Lincoln Harbor Station. You can also find New York Waterway ferries there. However, to get to these, people walking need to go around the tunnel's toll plaza.
Gallery
-
A postcard from around 1900 showing Shippen Street looking west toward Palisade Avenue.
-
The city's old town hall, near the Shippen Stairs, shown around the 1800s and in 2010.
-
A photograph of the Shippen Street hairpin turns from the early 1900s. The cobblestone street and stone walls are still in good shape.
-
A map from the Geological Society in 1904, showing a plan to build a tunnel across the Hudson River. Figure 23 shows where Shippen Street crosses Palisades, Hudson, and Gregory Avenues.
