With a combined population of approximately 206,000 according to 2022 estimates,[7] the municipalities are among the most densely populated in the United States. Some have large proportions of foreign-born residents[8][9] and majority Hispanic populations.[10] In four of the five towns, large percentages of the population speak another language other than English.[11]
The towns and adjacent areas have been known as the "Home of the American Embroidery Industry",[12][13] the silk center of the nation,[14] and "Havana on the Hudson".
Use of the name
The collective name for the municipalities of North Hudson has been used for various agencies, institutions, and organizations.
Public services in the region include the North Hudson Regional Fire and Rescue,[1] founded in 1998 when municipal services were merged,[18][19] and the North Hudson Sewerage Authority, which serves Hoboken, Union City, Weehawken, and West New York.[20]
The North Hudson Community Action Corporation (1965)[24] and the North Hudson Regional Council of Mayors are organizations offering social services to the area.[25][26][27]
In the late 2000s, North Hudson came to be dubbed "NoHu" within certain communities[28][29][30][31] a name used for a film festival founded in 2008.[32][33]
Geography and demographics
Population
An 1841 map shows the area as being part of Bergen and still very rural.
By 1947, one estimate put the population of North Hudson at 175,000.[34]
North Hudson lies north of Bergen, one of earliest settlements in New Jersey, founded in 1660. During the British and colonial it was known as Bergen Woods and was in the southeastern part of Bergen County. On February 22, 1838, Jersey City was incorporated as a separate municipality,[42] In 1840 Hudson County, comprising Jersey City and Bergen Township, was created from the southern portion of Bergen County.[42][43] North Bergen was incorporated as a township on April 10, 1843, by an act of the New Jersey Legislature, from the northern portion of Bergen Township.[44][45] At the time, the town included everything east of the Hackensack River and north of and including what is now Jersey City Heights.[46][47]
North Hudson experienced massive immigration and urbanization during the latter half of the 19th century, and led to the creation of various new towns. Portions of the North Bergen were taken to form Hoboken Township (April 9, 1849, now the City of Hoboken), Hudson Town (April 12, 1852, later part of Hudson City), Hudson City (April 11, 1855, later merged with Jersey City), Guttenberg (formed within the township on March 9, 1859, and set off as an independent municipality on April 1, 1878), Weehawken (March 15, 1859), Union Township and West Hoboken Township (both created on February 28, 1861), Union Hill town (March 29, 1864) and Secaucus (March 12, 1900).[44]
In the early 1900s the idea of the all towns consolidating emerged and subsided,[48][49][50] Eventually West Hoboken and Union Hill merged in 1925. Though each municipality has an independent local government and school district, they collaborate (sometimes with Hoboken) on certain services including fire-fighting, water supply, sewage treatment[51] emergency medical services, and vocational education. Some are members of the Bergen County Cooperative Library System.[52][53]
The relationship between the early Dutch settlers and Native Americans was marked by frequent armed conflict over land claims. In 1658 by New Netherland colony Director-General Peter Stuyvesant re-purchased the territory.[62][63] The boundaries of the purchase are described in the deed preserved in the New York State Archives, as well as the medium of exchange: "80 fathoms of wampum, 20 fathoms of cloth, 12 brass kettles, 6 guns, one double brass kettle, 2 blankets, and one half barrel of strong beer."[64] In 1660, he ordered the building of a fortified village at Bergen to protect the area.[65] It was the first permanent European settlement in New Jersey, located in what is now the Journal Square area of Jersey City near Academy Street.[63][66] In 1664, the British captured New Netherland from the Dutch, at which point the boundaries of Bergen Township encompassed what is now known as Hudson County. North of this was the unpopulated Bergen Woods, which would later be claimed by settlers, after whom a number of Union City streets today are named,[63]
Like most of the New York metropolitan area, North Hudson experienced waves of immigration, specifically: settlers from the Netherlands, British colonialists, German-speaking farmers and entrepreneurs, Irish fleeing the famine, "Ellis Islanders", World Wars refugees, the "Spanish" (initially Cuban immigrants, and later other South and Central Americans),[67] and most recently, so-called "cosmopolitans" including individuals and childless families, yuppies, retirees, gay men and women, newlyweds, house-sharers, and rent refugees from less gentrified areas.[68]
In the mid-19th century and early 20th century German Americans dominated the area.[69] They, along with Swiss and Austrian immigrants, imported machines and founded the Schiffli lace making industries, for which they were famous, and the region became the "embroidery capitol of the United States",[12][13] as well as the silk center of the nation.[14]
Many of the factory buildings still house clothing manufacturers, while others have been converted to art studios or housing. It was this community who (in 1915) established what has become longest running passion play in the U.S., creating America's Oberammergau.[70][71] The German-American Volksfest has taken place annually since 1874 at Schuetzen Park.[72][73]
North Hudson is home to a large Cuban American population
In the 1960s and 1970s the some residents left for the suburbs. Simultaneously middle-class and professional Cubans, fleeing the revolution in their home country, re-located to the area[74][75] and are generally considered to have "saved" it from a devastating downward spiral, leading to the nickname "Havana on the Hudson".[76][77] North Hudson has the second largest Cuban American population in the United States behind Miami.[40] Since its inception in 2000 the Cuban Day Parade of New Jersey has become a major annual event in North Hudson, beginning in North Bergen and traveling south to its end in Union City.[78][79][80][81][82][83]
Once home to a large Jewish community that declined, the area's Jewish population has been on the rise since the turn of the current millennium.[84][85][86]
Transportation
The narrow waterfront at the base of the Palisades (along with Hoboken, Jersey City, Bayonne, and Edgewater) was an integral part of Port of New York and New Jersey's shipping industry. Rail lines under and on both sides of the Palisades were laid. From its terminal in Weehawken the West Shore Railroad operated long-distance and commuter passenger train and ferry service (used by travellers and locals alike),[87][88] from 1884 to 1959.
^ ab"North Hudson Regional Fire and Rescue". Retrieved June 25, 2019. Covering the North Hudson towns of Guttenberg, North Bergen, Union City, Weehawken and West New York
^"Disparate Impact Case Turns On Battle Of The Experts". Workplace Class Action Blog. December 15, 2011. Retrieved June 26, 2019. North Hudson fire department was formed in 1998, and it was comprised of firefighters from five New Jersey municipalities, including Guttenberg, North Bergen, Union City, Weehawken, and West New York. North Hudson maintained a requirement that all firefighter candidates must live within the five North Hudson towns to be eligible for hire...
Villanova, Patrick. "The 17 Hudson County institutions you need to know about from 1867-2017". The Jersey Journal. Retrieved July 2, 2019. The industry's glory days were between 1950 and 1980 when North Hudson (and Fairview in neighboring Bergen County) had 700 firms with 90 percent of the U.S. market share...just a remnant of the historic industry remains – along with signs over the Lincoln Tunnel approaches proclaiming North Hudson Embroidery Capital of the World.
Committee, United States Congress Senate Subcommittee on Patents, Trademarks, and Copyrights of the Judiciary (June 25, 1961). "DesignProtection". Retrieved June 25, 2019 – via Google Books.((cite web)): CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
^"Why we call ourselves Nohu". Nohu Collctive. May 16, 2018. Retrieved July 18, 2019. Note: NoHu consists of the towns North Bergen, Guttenberg, West New York, Union City & Weehawken in New Jersey
^Mary Paul and Caren Matzner. "Scores of artists find a place in N. Hudson" The Union City Reporter, April 17, 2008, pages 1, 6 and 19
^Dia, Hannington; Writer, Staff (May 13, 2018). "Meet neighbors in North Hudson". Retrieved June 23, 2019. "Only in NoHu," a group for people in North Bergen, Weehawken, West New York, Guttenberg, and Union City – all in northern Hudson County.
^Galland, Frank (1947). North Hudson Kiwanis Club: History and Directory: Silver Anniversary: 1922 — 1947. Hudson County, New Jersey: North Hudson Kiwanis Club. p. 50.
^Karabin, Gerard. "Brief History of Union City". Union City, New Jersey. Accessed August 28, 2017. "Eighty-five years ago on June 1, 1925, the Town of Union (colloquially known as Union Hill) and the Township of West Hoboken joined together and became one, the city of Union City."
^Day, Gordon M. "The Indian as an Ecological Factor in the Northeastern Forests." Ecology, Vol. 34, No. 2 (April): 329-346. New England and New York areas 1580–1800. Notes that the Lenni Lenape (Delaware) tribe in New Jersey and the Massachuset tribe in Massachusetts used fire in ecosystems.1953
^Russell, Emily W.B. "Vegetational Change in Northern New Jersey Since 1500 A.D.: A Palynological, Vegetational and Historical Synthesis." PhD dissertation. New Brunswick, PA: Rutgers University. Author notes on page 8 that Indians often augmented lightning fires. 1979
^Russell, Emily W.B. "Indian Set Fires in the Forests of the Northeastern United States." Ecology, Vol. 64, No. 1 (Feb): 78 88. 1983a Author found no strong evidence that Indians purposely burned large areas, but they did burn small areas near their habitation sites. Noted that the Lenna Lenape Tribe used fire.
^A Brief Description of New York, Formerly Called New Netherlands with the Places Thereunto Adjoining, Likewise a Brief Relation of the Customs of the Indians There. New York, NY: William Gowans. 1670. Reprinted in 1937 by the Facsimile Text Society, Columbia University Press, New York. Notes that the Lenni Lenape (Delaware) tribe in New Jersey used fire in ecosystems.
^Cunningham, John T. (June 18, 1994). This is New Jersey. Rutgers University Press. p. 100. ISBN9780813521411 – via Internet Archive. north hudson townships.
