Read Jack Riepe’s complete article.
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The majestic Pulaski Skyway, built in 1932, stretches 11 miles from Newark to Jersey City like a noose. My brother, Jerry, got to Paris before I did. The first thing I asked him was, “What is the Eiffel Tower like?” His response, “Imagine the Pulaski Skyway sticking straight up in the air.”
Above — The Pulaski Skyway stretches 11 miles from Newark, NJ, to Jersey City, NJ, like a noose. (Photo courtesy of Wikipedia)
Yet it was here that my fears started to get the best of me. The fastest way to get to the heart of Jersey City was from Exit 15e… Which leads to two poorly placed lift bridges, built in 1932. (One has four lanes of traffic, and the other has six.) I remember both as having steel decks, and one with the approach ramps from the Turnpike going into a right angle turn, terminating at a “Yield” sign, at the deck’s edge.
I hate shit like this.
But a gap in traffic magically appeared and I was on the first bridge in the blink of an eye. Amazingly enough, the steel deck had been replaced by a paved roadway. No problamo. I started to laugh in my helmet. And then I was on the second bridge, sandwiched between two trucks, on a steel deck that was a slippery as the cross-examination of my second wife’s divorce lawyer. I hit it doing 55 mph, and I was over the deck in a second or two. It had been 30 years since I last rode a motorcycle over this particular bridge.
Above — The Communipaw Avenue lift bridge was built in 1932. It spans the Hackensack River with a steel grate deck that is six lanes wide. (Photo courtesy of Wikipedia)
The first traffic light brought me to the intersection of Rt. 440 and Communipaw Ave. in Jersey City. I learned how to ride a motorcycle in Jersey City, I can assure all of you it is a highly over-rated experience. Riding down West Side Avenue, and then Kennedy Boulevard on Sunday, prompted me to think, “This is some shit for the birds.”
One forgets the genteel nature of Jersey City. Arriving at the parking lot recommended by my brother, the attendant greeting me warmly by saying, “No motorcycle parking… Get that fucking thing outta here.”
My first inclination was to return this typical Jersey City salutation with a cheery, “How about I get off this bike and shove that stupid little gate up your ass.” But I didn’t think that would help the situation. Instead, I showed the man a ten-spot, which is all he wanted in the first place. Three minutes later, I was parked five feet from the elevator leading directly to my mother’s floor. We had a pleasant three-hour visit.
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I dare you to stand at the intersection of the “State Highway” where it intersects with Kennedy Boulevard, in Jersey City, and not tell me the view to the west is a vision of Mordor, or hell.
At that point, you are looking at two coal-fired power plants, a gas works, endless chemical plants, closed factories, crumbling piers, radio stations with collapsed towers, no less than five landfills (15 stories high), a number of high-priority toxic super-fund sites, and a brown smudge line suspended in the air like a ribbon, indicating the exhaust cloud over the New Jersey Turnpike.
The area is lovingly referred to as the cancer strip, as neighboring communities have the highest levels of leukemia in the country.
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It’s hard for someone not from here to understand what it means to cram 1,000,000 people into an area smaller than 5 square miles.., The kind of traffic this creates… Imagine the City of Key West with 1,000,000 people, require 30 different bus routes, 5 commuter train routes, a subway, and a trolley, surrounded by the wreckage of waterfront heavy industry — including refineries. It is dificult t even conceive of the garbage and human waste this generates.
It’s hard to conceive of Weehawken… Twelve blocks long, 5 blocks wide, and a population in excess of 14,000. Or Guttenburg, which is half that size and has 4,000 residents in one high-rise complex.
We never the saw the downside, until we were on the outside looking in.
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Jersey City is a wonderful place… But it cetainly is the dog shit and broken glass capital of the world. And while some parts of it are gentrified, and others are capped with towering chrome and glass, its original Dickensian nature remains intact.
My brother still lives there and he loves it. I used to think he was nuts. But he has a strong attachment to the 300 years of history that stain the place.
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Read Jack Riepe’s complete article.
