The Hudson, like every river, has two banks and so far I have primarily shot from the eastern one. Today I decided that I would spend time in the far western region known as New Jersey, Hoboken to be specific.   I had read that NJ was developing a walk, The Hudson River Waterfront Walkway, http://www.state.nj.us/dep/cmp/czm_hudson.html much like NYC’s Hudson River Greenway , http://www.traillink.com/trail/hudson-river-greenway.aspx and I set out to do some walking.

I hopped on the NY Waterway Ferry http://www.nywaterway.com/ at The World Financial Center and crossed to the NJ Transit Terminal in Hoboken.  Right there in the station they have signs pointing you to the Walkway (which actually seems to run through the terminal.)  At that point I had to decide if I would walk south towards Jersey City or north towards Weehawken. The coin came up north so off I went.  The views of Manhattan from Hoboken are spectacular and I must particularly recommend the view from The Stevens Institute of Technology, which is on a hill overlooking the river.

Much to my surprise a number of areas within the first 1/2-mile of the terminal were blocked off from public use.  It looked like parts of the Walkway had fallen into the river. A playground over the river was cut off by a chain link fence and bright orange stretchy material with signs saying “Danger -Keep Out”. Several walkways out into the river and major parts of Frank Sinatra Park also were blocked off.  It turns out that despite being only 10 years old, much of the Walkway in Hoboken is collapsing. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/08/nyregion/08hoboken.html

You would think that, given humans have been living on the river for more than a thousand years, someone might have realized that it can be an aggressive and possibly destructive force and care must be taken in the materials used and in the design of structures.  Apparently not.

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I went a little links crazy today, since I think I figured out how to embed them. Please let me know if they don’t work!