Jersey City Waterfront & Downtown
CRRNJ Terminal: The Other Side of Ellis Island
Listen at the stop, then read the transcript and follow the sources behind the story.
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Transcript
Most immigration stories stop at Ellis Island.
This terminal shows what happened next.
The Central Railroad of New Jersey Terminal opened in 1889 as part of a huge rail-and-ferry complex on the Jersey City waterfront.
Passengers arriving by train could transfer to ferries for Manhattan.
New immigrants processed at Ellis Island could move in the opposite direction: from ferry to rail, then west or south toward communities across the United States.
NJDEP estimates that during the great immigration era, a very large share of Ellis Island arrivals passed through this terminal on the next stage of their journeys.
That makes the building an important corrective to the idea that New York Harbor immigration ended at the inspection station.
A port is a system.
Ships bring people to the harbor.
Government processes them.
Railroads redistribute them across a continent.
Hotels, ticket offices, baggage handlers and ferries make the transitions possible.
Jersey City was one of the machines connecting those pieces.
The terminal also moved enormous numbers of commuters.
At peak use, tens of thousands of passengers crossed through daily.
The railroad ceased operating here in 1967 after bankruptcy and regional transportation changes.
The building survived while the tracks around it became obsolete.
Today the terminal sits in Liberty State Park beside open lawns and skyline views.
That peaceful setting hides its original intensity.
Imagine steam, luggage, announcements, ferries, immigrant families trying to understand tickets in a new language, and commuters racing toward Manhattan.
Ellis Island was a threshold.
This was one of the places where America actually started moving people onward.