Beyond the scenic beauty of the Palisades, the people who created this park also saved a living piece of the American story. Dive deeper into the history of the Palisades riverfront, its summit — or the park’s own role as a National Landmark.
Interactive History Timeline
Our Public History Staff has created an interactive timeline that showcases some highlights of Palisades history! It provides links to interesting Cliff Notes Articles and showcases some of our stunning views over the centuries.
Historic Sites in the Park...
Fort Lee Historic Park is a cliff-top park area with scenic overlooks, a reconstructed Revolutionary War encampment, and a Visitor Center. Historic reenactments and a unique “living history” school program also take place here!
The Kearney House helps bring to life two centuries in the story of the Hudson River. Open to tour on weekends in warm weather, the house is also the setting for special events based on its role as a nineteenth-century Hudson River tavern.
The Women’s Federation Monument is a trailside monument on the cliff top dedicated in 1929 to honor the role that the New Jersey State Federation of Women’s Clubs played in our founding.
Stories & Pictures
A collection of articles written by the Palisades Interstate Park in New Jersey. Published since 1998, each article focuses on the Palisades.
Much of our image and document archive is now searchable through the NY Heritage Digital Collections — with new items added all the time!
Our Public Historians digitized an entire collection of letters and diary from the Miles Family, who lived along the Palisades in Alpine.
We were given a Scrapbook from the 1930's from the Closter Library. The digitized collection can be found with annotations.
A New Deal for the Palisades
In our video A New Deal for the Palisades, historic film footage and text from park documents of the day tell the story of the park’s heyday in the 1930’s. CCC Boys and the WPA were integral to our park in that period, and here is a great chance to see them in action!
The Riverfront
The Hudson River lies below the Palisades, and it has been the backdrop for countless historic moments. From the Revolutionary War to Hurricane Sandy, our shores witnessed unforgettable moments!
Invasion of the Jerseys
The Revolutionary War came very close to home during the 1776 invasion of the British under command of General Cornwallis. After scaling Lower Closter Landing (Today's Huyler's Landing Trail), 5,000 British Troops advanced to Fort Lee. This spurred Washington's retreat across New Jersey and inspired Thomas Paine to begin writing the "American Crisis," boosting morale among soldiers and civilians.
A later military advancement by the British was thwarted by local militiamen in 1781. Two years later from the cliffs of Fort Lee, Americans could see the last British War Vessels leaving New York Harbor during Evacuation Day.
The Revolutionary Period is remembered in our park today at Fort Lee Historic Park, where programs and reenactments bring you back in time.
Excursion Groves
From as early as the 1860s, a few families along the Palisades had leased excursion groves to companies that ran steamboat outings from the city. Typically, a couple thousand excursionists took a sail up the river, stopped for a few hours at a grove to picnic, dance, and play baseball before returning to the city.
Once the Palisades Interstate Park was founded, our Commission sought to continue and expand this kind of activity. Workers improved old excursion areas and built new ones. They added modern amenities like city water and police protection. The earliest and largest such park area was at Forest View, at the northern end of the park, with wide lawns, a ball field, campgrounds, a pavilion with a beer garden, and later, a boat basin.
A Changing Way of Life
The mid-century economic boom at the river landings was long past by 1900, when the Palisades Interstate Park Commission was created. Big industrialized quarry operations now blasted sections of the cliffs. Still, there were several hundred people living in what was about to become a park, among them some whose families had lived here for generations. In the decade leading up to the 1909 dedication, the newly formed Interstate Commission set out to buy their homes and properties to create this new public park. Some of the river folk would stay, renting homes from the Commission, and some were employees for the new park. A way of life along the river was coming swiftly to an end.
River Landings
When our Park was created in 1900, our riverfront was not untouched wilderness. At natural breaks in the Palisades, trails which the Lenape and other Indigenous tribes blazed were used to set up seasonal encampments on the riverbanks.
As early as the 1700's, a few hardy families had begun to homestead along river landings at the base of these old trails. Boat Landings took advantage of natural breaks in the cliff face and local farmers began to build more accessible wagon roads. For centuries, landings were used by locals to ship goods to New York City’s marketplaces. Today's Huyler's Landing Trail and Closter Dock Trail are both remnants of those original landings.
A Multiracial Boatman Community
The isolated colonial river landings grew into thriving communities of boatmen, laborers, and their families. By 1850, dozens of small quarries had been established to mine rocks used for building docks and cobblestone roads in nearby cities. Men of the river landings continued to fish for shad each spring and to serve as captains and crew on the sloops and schooners that plied the river.
Bone Factories boiled and ground animal bones for fertilizer, and Miles & Holman Oatmeal Mill employed immigrant laborers at Closter Landing. These newcomers came to join the already diverse communities at each landing.
Catherine Brown was the daughter of Freedmen and lived in the multiracial, multi-ethnic community at Huyler's Landing. During the late 1800's, she and other Bergen County residents were able to live fulfilling lives under the shadow of the Palisades.
Carpenter Brothers’ Quarry
Quarries were in New Jersey, but the outcry against them had begun across the river in New York, where each day millions could see the devastation. The first concerted effort to preserve the Palisades was led by the American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society in the 1890's. The Society at last found an ally on the Jersey side of the river in 1895, when the New Jersey State Federation of Women’s Clubs joined the fight.
The women set out to persuade the state legislature to pass a bill to join with New York to protect the Palisades. New Jersey's Governor Foster Voorhees and New York's Governor Theodore Roosevelt signed it into law in 1900. Vital financial support came from J. P. Morgan, who donated over $125,000 to close the Carpenter Brothers’ Quarry in Fort Lee, as well as John D. Rockefeller Senior. Other financial contributions came from the very same women who helped spur on the fight.
The Summit
Massive cliffs tower over the scenery. On the clifftops, there are countless historical places spanning from Skunk Hollow to Millionaire's Row.
The Summit
From Colonial days, the summit of the Palisades held little attraction for farmers or land speculators due to the sparse soil layers. Lumberjacks harvested the forests for firewood and building material, transporting logs to the river using natural chutes formed by crevasses in the cliffs, known as pitching places.
In addition to these wood harvesters, small saw mills would pop up and disappear once all the wood in a given area was processed. In these early days, the people of the valley referred to the area of the Palisades near the New York boarder as Closter Mountain.
Summer Estates
It wasn’t until around the time of the Civil War that the Palisades summit became a site for summer estates.
Among the first New York families to establish a country seat on the Palisades was Joseph Lamb, founder of J.&R. Lamb Studios. He owned one of the most prominent stained glass studios in the country, rivaling Tiffany Studios. The Lamb family built Falcon Lodge around 1860.
Frank and Col. Sweeting Miles were the next to build their homes. Along with large mansions, the brothers established a cereal and coffee mill at Closter Landing. They chose to build their estate overlooking the mill at an area known as Pulpit Rock. A neighbor was Charles Nordhoff, the highest paid political journalist during the Civil War. It is said Mrs. Nordhoff was the first to propose the name Alpine for their growing community. A prominent architect named J. Cleveland Cady moved in as well, lending his services to design Alpine's Methodist Church, which can still be seen at the top of Closter Dock Road.
Closter Mountain Skunk Hollow
Rugged families, most of them living on the economic margins, built homes on the summit early on despite the difficult terrain. Among them was a community of Freedmen led by Jack Earnest, a man who started life enslaved to a local farmer but who bought his own freedom and founded a settlement known by descendants as Skunk Hollow or Closter Mountain.
The Palisades Mountain House
On the Englewood cliffs, William and Catherine Dana, built their estate “Graycliffs.” By the early 1870s, a road named the Boulevard was laid across the summit, and the Danas and others financed the construction of an opulent cliff-edge hotel in Englewood Cliffs.
The Palisades Mountain House could accommodate around five hundred guests in fine luxury, and the Danas built a spectacular carriage road to a steamboat landing on the river. The Mountain House burned in 1884, but grand estates continued to rise along the Boulevard. The old carriage road is now Dyckman Hill Road, one of the access points to the park.
Millionaire’s Row
As time went on, more wealthy people moved into "Millionare's Row" with their families. Dr. Ernest Cadgene, a French Chemist who operated silk mills in Patterson, settled in present-day Englewood Cliffs. A Cuban Sugar Baron named Manuel Rionda built a sprawling estate which would be the largest seen along the Palisades. He named his land Rio Vista, and today you can still see his watertower in Alpine.
His nephew, Manuel E. Rionda who built Glen Goin on the old Nordhoff estate would one day become the Mayor of Alpine. John and Mable Ringling, of circus fame, built Gray Crag farther north in Alpine. John Clawson and Cora Timken Burnett, a scientist and an artist, designed a bizarre and secluded estate on an isolated section of cliff top in Alpine. George A. Zabriskie, a flour merchant and historian, built a new and grander Cliff Dale on the former grounds of W. C. Baker’s estate of the same name. The Oltmans built Penlyn, now our Park Headquarters.
Englewood Cliffs
While most activity focused on the riverfront, on the summit in Englewood Cliffs, the Park Commission established a “tourist camp” for early motor campers…
... while on the stone precipices above the Fort Lee bathing beaches, early movie makers were busy cranking out classic silent “cliffhangers…!”
A People's Park
New York and New Jersey came together to form the Palisades Interstate Park Commission in 1900. It was the culmination of years of effort to preserve the famous Palisades Cliffs from several large quarries that were blasting them for crushed stone and building material.
Dedication | 1909
On September 27, 1909, the governors of New York and New Jersey dedicated the Palisades Interstate Park, officially opening it to the public. The event was part of a region-wide celebration that marked the 300th anniversary of Henry Hudson’s 1609 voyage up the river that would be named for him.
Women’s Club Monument
In April 1929, on top of the Palisades in Alpine, a monument in the shape of a miniature watchtower was dedicated to the role the New Jersey State Federation of Women’s Clubs had played in preserving the Palisades. It was planned for decades, but was long delayed due to financial issues.
Ferry Lines
Beginning in 1912, to accommodate the automobile, the Commission began construction of Henry Hudson Drive, a unique “motor trail” through the park. Around the same time, the Commission built ferry approach roads and docks for a pair of large vehicular ferry services. One operated from Dyckman Street in Manhattan to Englewood Landing, the other from Yonkers to Alpine Landing. Boat basins were built at both ferry landings, along with picnic groves and other amenities.
By 1930, these two ferry lines transported over a million vehicles across the river each year. Another boat ran to Hazard’s Dock from 158th Street that also brought many thousands of visitors to and from the park each summer day.
River Bathing
From the outset, the biggest attraction in the new park was river bathing. A big stone bathhouse was built for Hazard’s Dock at the southern end of the park in 1918, another big bathhouse was built for Undercliff Beach in 1922, and around the same time a camp colony was established at Ross Dock, with its own small beach.
During the Great Depression, attendance at the park and its beaches soared, as millions took advantage of inexpensive recreation just a ferry ride from home.
The improving economy, the opening of the George Washington Bridge (which spelled doom for most of the ferry lines), America’s entry into the Second World War, and river pollution led to the closing of the last Palisades beach, at Alpine, after the 1943 season.
Civil Works Administration (CWA)
During the Depression, the park benefited from New Deal work agencies, including the Civil Works Administration (CWA), which in 1934 built bathhouses at the Alpine and Bloomer’s beaches (the bathhouse at Alpine is still in use today as Alpine Pavilion); the Works Progress Administration (WPA); and the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), which operated out of a pair of camps at Greenbrook.
In 1937 “CCC boys” built many of the retaining walls still in use along Henry Hudson Drive.
George Washington Bridge
At the same time they were honoring the creation of this unique Interstate Park, the Commissioners were wrestling with a new challenge. Just months earlier, ground had been broken for a bridge from Fort Lee to Manhattan. Named the George Washington Memorial Bridge when it opened in October 1931, its construction raised a serious question: What was to become of the summit of the Palisades, once it had been made accessible to every automobile in New York City?
Construction of the new “Hudson River Bridge” (later named the George Washington Bridge) c. 1930.
John D. Rockefeller Jr.
The Commission had a strong ally in the person of John D. Rockefeller Jr., who began quietly to buy up as much of the property on the summit as he could. He would donate several hundred acres to the Commission in 1933, with the stipulation that the Commission use this land to build a Parkway from the new George Washington Bridge to the Bear Mountain Bridge — and that all man-made structures visible from across the river be removed.
The days of the grand cliff-edge estates were coming to a sudden end.
Construction Begins
The Works Progress Administration (WPA) was given the task of surveying the route of the Parkway, and of razing the “undesirable structures” along the cliff edge.
Construction of the Palisades Interstate Parkway began in New York in 1947, in New Jersey in 1948. A “demonstration mile” for the public opened in Englewood Cliffs in 1950. The final section in New Jersey was completed in Alpine on June 22, 1957. On August 28, 1958, the final five-mile section in New York, between Tappan and Nanuet, was opened to traffic. Over 60,000 cars now use the Parkway each day.
A “Demonstration Mile” of the Palisades Interstate Parkway was opened to motorists in Englewood Cliffs to try out in 1955.
Point Lookout
During this time, the WPA also built a unique refreshment stand at “Point Lookout,” the highest point on the Palisades, a stand that is still in operation today!
You can visit this structure today, which serves as our State Line Cafe.
Greenbrook Sanctuary
The Second World War delayed the start of the construction of the Palisades Interstate Parkway, and there was some significant opposition to the new highway from conservationists, who felt it would needlessly mar the summit. The Commission however held fast to its conception of a limited-access scenic highway on the summit, as opposed to simply widening 9W, with its weight of commercial traffic, as most of the Parkway’s opponents proposed. Though it didn’t appease all opponents of the Parkway, a compromise of sorts was reached through the creation of Greenbrook Sanctuary.
Then and Now...
Over a century of being open to the public, the Palisades Interstate Park in New Jersey is happy to look forward to the future!
Designated as a National Landmark
In 1998, the Palisades Interstate Parkway was designated as a National Landmark by the National Park Service.
The 1990's
In the late 1990’s Ross Dock Picnic Area was renovated, and a hawk watch was established at State Line Lookout.
1960's
In 1965, the United States Department of the Interior and the National Park Service designated the Palisades Interstate Park a National Historic Landmark, noting, “The Palisades Interstate Park represents an unusual effort by two states, New Jersey and New York, to preserve the scenic beauty of the cliffs on the lower western side of the Hudson River…”
Around that time, efforts were taken to preserve “the Bluff” in Fort Lee, where the Continental Army had placed its batteries in 1776. The site was eventually acquired by the Commission, which opened Fort Lee Historic Park in time for the American Bicentennial in 1976. An innovative school program was soon after developed at the site, and continues today.
Modern Challenges
Many challenges remain — among them, rebuilding after Hurricane Sandy, which devastated our riverfront in the fall of 2012 — but this park has fully entered its second century. As we noted on the centennial of the park’s dedication: “Beaches and campgrounds, bathhouses and CCC camps — picnic groves and boat basins and a ‘tourist camp’ — much has come and gone. ... Yet beyond even the great cliffs themselves, something vital persists: a promise made, a promise to be kept...”
Kearney House added to the New Jersey State and National Historic Register
Around the same time that “The Palisades of the Hudson” was designated a National Natural Landmark, the historic Kearney House was added to the New Jersey State and National Historic Registers (listed as “Blackledge-Kearney House”). In 1990, after decades of being closed, it was restored and reopened to the public.
Long Path and the Palisades Shore Trail
In 1971, both the Long Path and the Palisades Shore Trail were designated as National Recreation Trails.
In 1983 “The Palisades of the Hudson” was designated a National Natural Landmark, as “the best example of a thick diabase sill formation known in the United States. Columnar jointing, an olivine zone and thermal metamorphic effects are attributes found in rare combination at this site. The glaciated crest provides impressive evidence of the Pleistocene glacier.”
Further renovation
Further renovation of the Kearney House was done in 2003, with the fireplaces brought back into use a year later, allowing for a new “living history” approach to programming there. Other interpretive programming was also developed throughout the park at this time, and a new park map was developed.
Current Research
To learn more about these topics, visit in person or reach out to our Public Historians:
Francesca Costa at fcosta@njpalisades.org