Bayonne, New Jersey, United States

🇺🇸 Bayonne is a city in Hudson County in the U.S. state of New Jersey. Located in the Gateway Region, Bayonne is situated on a peninsula between Newark Bay to the west, the Kill Van Kull to the south, and New York Bay to the east. The city was the state's 15th-most-populous municipality, ranking the city the 543rd-most-populous in the country.

Bayonne was originally formed as a township on April 1, 1861, from portions of Bergen Township. Bayonne was reincorporated as a city by an act of the New Jersey Legislature on March 10, 1869, replacing Bayonne Township, subject to the results of a referendum held nine days later. At the time it was formed, Bayonne included the communities of Bergen Point, Constable Hook, Centreville, Pamrapo and Saltersville.

While somewhat diminished, traditional manufacturing, distribution, and maritime activities remain a driving force of the economy of the city. A portion of the Port of New York and New Jersey is located there, as is the Cape Liberty Cruise Port.

History Originally inhabited by Native Americans, the region presently known as Bayonne was claimed by the Netherlands after Henry Hudson explored the Hudson River which is named after him. According to Royden Page Whitcomb's 1904 book, First History of Bayonne, New Jersey, the name Bayonne is speculated to have originated with Bayonne, France, from which Huguenots settled for a year before the founding of New Amsterdam. However, there is no empirical evidence for this notion. Whitcomb gives more credence to the idea that Erastus Randall, E.C. Bramhall and B.F. Woolsey, who bought the land owned by Jasper and William Cadmus for real estate speculation, named it Bayonne for purposes of real estate speculation, because it was located on the shores of two bays, Newark and New York.

Bayonne became one of the largest centres in the nation for refining crude oil and Standard Oil of New Jersey's facility—which had grown from its original establishment in 1877—and its 6,000 employees made it the city's largest place of employment. Significant civil unrest arose during the Bayonne refinery strikes of 1915–1916, in which mostly Polish-American workers staged labor actions against Standard Oil of New Jersey and Tidewater Petroleum, seeking improved pay and working conditions. Four striking workers were killed when strikebreakers, allegedly protected by police, fired upon a violent crowd.

The Cape Liberty Cruise Port is a cruise ship terminal that is on a 430-acre (170 ha) site that had been originally developed for industrial uses in the 1930s and then taken over by the U.S. government during World War II as the Military Ocean Terminal at Bayonne. Voyager of the Seas, departing from the cruise terminal in 2004, became the first passenger ship to depart from a port in New Jersey in almost 40 years.

Geography According to the United States Census Bureau, the city had a total area of 11.09 square miles (28.72 km²), including 5.82 square miles (15.08 km²) of land and 5.27 square miles (13.64 km²) of water (47.50%).

The city is located on a peninsula earlier known as Bergen Neck surrounded by Upper New York Bay to the east, Newark Bay to the west, and Kill Van Kull to the south. Bayonne is east of Newark, the state's largest city, north of Elizabeth in Union County and west of Brooklyn. It shares a land border with Jersey City to the north and is connected to Staten Island by the Bayonne Bridge.

Unincorporated communities, localities and place names located partially or completely within the city include: Bergen Point, Constable Hook and Port Johnson.

Demographics The city has an ethnically diverse population, home to large populations of Italian Americans, Irish Americans, Polish Americans, Indian Americans, Egyptian Americans, Dominican Americans, Mexican Americans, Salvadoran Americans, Pakistani Americans, Boricua, amongst others.

Economy Portions of the city are part of an Urban Enterprise Zone (UEZ), one of 32 zones covering 37 municipalities statewide. Bayonne was selected in 2002 as one of a group of three zones added to participate in the program. In addition to other benefits to encourage employment and investment within the Zone, shoppers can take advantage of a reduced 3.3125% sales tax rate (half of the 6+5⁄8% rate charged statewide) at eligible merchants. Established in September 2002, the city's Urban Enterprise Zone status expires in December 2023. More than 200 businesses have registered to participate in the city's UEZ since it was first established.

The Bayonne Town Center, located within the Broadway shopping district, includes retailers, eateries, consumer and small business banking centers. The Bayonne Medical Center is a for-profit hospital that anchors the northern end of the Town Center. It is the city's largest employer, with over 1,200 employees. A 2013 study showed that the hospital charged the highest rates in the United States.

Bayonne Crossing on Route 440 in Bayonne, includes a Lowe's and Wal-Mart.

On the site of the former Military Ocean Terminal, the Peninsula at Bayonne Harbor includes new housing and businesses. One of them, Cape Liberty Cruise Port is located at the end of the long peninsula with Royal Caribbean. Also found is a memorial park for the Tear of Grief, a 100-foot-high (30 m), 175-short-ton (159 t) monument commemorating the September 11 terrorist attacks and the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

The firearms manufacturing company Henry Repeating Arms moved from Brooklyn to Bayonne in 2009.

Parks and recreation Hackensack RiverWalk begins at Collins Park in Bergen Point where the Kill Van Kull meets the Newark Bay. Also along the bay is 16th Street Park. A plaque unveiled on May 2, 2006, for the new Richard A. Rutowski Park, a wetlands preserve on the north-western end of town that is part of the RiverWalk. It is located immediately north of the Stephen R. Gregg Hudson County Park.

Hudson River Waterfront Walkway is part of a walkway that is intended to run the more than 18 miles (29 km) from the Bayonne Bridge to the George Washington Bridge.

In August 2014, the Bayonne Hometown Fair, a popular tourist and community attraction that ceased in 2000, was revived by a local business owner and resident. The first revived Bayonne Hometown Fair took place from June 6–7, 2015.

Local government The City of Bayonne has been governed within the Faulkner Act, formally known as the Optional Municipal Charter Law, under the Mayor-Council system of municipal government (Plan C), implemented based on the recommendations of a Charter Study Commission as of July 1, 1962, before which it was governed by a Board of Commissioners under the Walsh Act. The city is one of 71 municipalities (of the 564) statewide that use this form of government. The governing body is comprised of the Mayor and the five-member City Council, of which two seats are chosen at-large and three from wards, all of whom serve four-year terms of office on a concurrent basis and are chosen in balloting held as part of the May municipal election.

Municipal Utilities Authority The Bayonne Municipal Utilities Authority (BMUA) is the second agency to use wind power in New Jersey and has built the first wind turbine in the metropolitan area. Construction of a single turbine tower was completed in January 2012. It is the first wind turbine created by Leitwind to be installed in the United States.

In December 2012, the autonomous agency entered into a water management agreement with the Bayonne Water Joint Venture (BWJV), a partnership between United Water and investment firm KKR. The 40-year concession agreement is a public-private partnership between the city and the BWJV in which the private partners pay off the BMUA's $130 million debt and take over the operations, maintenance, and capital improvement of Bayonne's water and wastewater utilities in exchange for a regulated share of the revenue. United Water is managing the operations for the partnership, while KKR is providing 90% of the funding. A rate schedule was included in the agreement, and it contained an immediate 8.5% utility rate increase (the first rate increase since 2006), followed by two years without increases, followed by annual increases estimated to range between 2.5%–4.5%. This partnership was sought for several reasons, including the BMUA's debt, its shortage of skilled employees, and its lagging rate revenue from years without rate increases and reduced demand. Part of this reduced demand stemmed from the closure of the Military Ocean Terminal at Bayonne, and the fact that the subsequent plans to redevelop the site with housing fell short. The BMUA's $130 million debt that was paid off by the BWJV represented over half of Bayonne's overall debt ($240 million) at the time, and in March 2013, Moody's Investors Service upgraded the credit rating of Bayonne from 'negative' to 'stable', citing the water deal.

Fire department The city of Bayonne has around 161 full-time professional firefighters consisting of the city of Bayonne Fire Department (BFD), which was founded on September 3, 1906, and operates out of five fire stations located throughout the city. The Bayonne Fire Dept operates a fleet of five engines, one squad (rescue-pumper), three ladder trucks, a heavy rescue truck (which is also part of the Metro USAR Collapse Rescue Strike Team), a large 4,000 gallon foam tanker truck, a haz-mat truck, a multi-service unit, a fireboat, as well as spare apparatus. Each tour is commanded by a battalion chief.

The department is part of the Metro USAR Strike Team, which consists of nine North Jersey fire departments and other emergency services divisions working to address major emergency rescue situations.

Education Public schools The Bayonne School District serves students from pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade. As of the 2020–21 school year, the district, comprised of 13 schools, had an enrollment of 10,059 students and 763.0 classroom teachers (on an FTE basis), for a student–teacher ratio of 13.2:1. Schools in the district (with 2020–21 enrollment data from the National Center for Education Statistics) are John M. Bailey School No. 12 (656 students; in grades PreK-8), Mary J. Donohoe No. 4 (459; PreK-8), Henry E. Harris No. 1 (637; PreK-8), Lincoln Community School No. 5 (433; PreK-8), Horace Mann No. 6 (641; PreK-8), Nicholas Oresko School No. 14 (444; PreK-8), Dr. Walter F. Robinson No. 3 (772; PreK-8), William Shemin Midtown Community School No. 8 (1,230; PreK-8), Phillip G. Vroom No. 2 (485; PreK-8), George Washington Community School No. 9 (677; PreK-8), Woodrow Wilson School No. 10 (747; PreK-8), Bayonne High School (1,290; 9-12) and Bayonne Alternative High School (141; 9-12). Bayonne High School is the only public school in the state to have an on-campus ice rink for its hockey team.

During the 1998–99 school year, Midtown Community School No. 8 was recognised with the National Blue Ribbon School Award of Excellence by the United States Department of Education. During the 2008–2009 school year, Nicholas Oresko School No. 14 was recognised as a Blue Ribbon School award, and Washington Community School No. 9 was honored during the 2009–2010 school year.

For the 2004–05 school year, Mary J. Donohoe No. 4 School was named a "Star School" by the New Jersey Department of Education, the highest honor that a New Jersey school can achieve. It is the fourth school in Bayonne to receive this honor. The other three are Bayonne High School in 1995–96, Midtown Community School in 1996–97 and P.S. #14 in the 1998–99 school year.

Private schools Private schools in Bayonne include All Saints Catholic Academy, for grades Pre-K–8, which operates under the supervision of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Newark and was one of eight private schools recognised in 2017 as an Exemplary High Performing School by the National Blue Ribbon Schools Program of the United States Department of Education. Marist High School, a co-ed Catholic high school, announced in January 2020 that it would close at the end of the 2019–2020 school year due to deficits that had risen to $1 million and enrollment that had declined by 50% since 2008.

The Yeshiva Gedolah of Bayonne is a yeshiva high school / beis medrash / Kolel with 130 students.

Holy Family Academy for girls in ninth through twelfth grades was closed at the end of the 2012–2013 school year in the wake of financial difficulties and declining enrollment, having lost the support of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia in 2008.

Libraries and museums The Bayonne Public Library, one of New Jersey's original 36 Carnegie libraries, the Bayonne Community Museum, the Bayonne Firefighters Museum, and the Joyce-Herbert VFW Post 226 Veterans Museum provide educational events and programs.

Media and culture Bayonne is located within the New York media market, with most of its daily papers available for sale or delivery. Local, county, and regional news is covered by the daily Jersey Journal. The Bayonne Community News is part of The Hudson Reporter group of local weeklies. Other weeklies, the River View Observer and El Especialito also cover local news. Bayonne-based periodicals include the Bayonne Evening Star-Telegram (B.E.S.T.).

Bayonne's local culture is served by the Annual Outdoor Art Show, which was instituted in 2008, in which local artists display their works.

Jackie Gleason, a former headliner at the Hi-Hat Club in Bayonne, was fascinated by the city and mentioned it often in the television series The Honeymooners.

Films set in Bayonne include the 1991 film Mortal Thoughts, with Demi Moore and Bruce Willis, which was filmed near Horace Mann School and locations around Bayonne and Hoboken; the 2000 drama Men of Honor, starring Robert De Niro and Cuba Gooding Jr.; the 2002 drama Hysterical Blindness; and the 2005 Tom Cruise science fiction film War of the Worlds, which opens at the Bayonne home of the lead character, and depicts the destruction of the Bayonne Bridge by aliens. Films shot in Bayonne include the 2001 film A Beautiful Mind, scenes of which were filmed at the Peninsula at Bayonne Harbor, and the 2008 Mickey Rourke drama The Wrestler, which was partially filmed in the Color & Cuts Salon and the former Dolphin Gym, both of which are on Broadway in Bayonne.

The November 16, 2010, episode of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart parodied former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin's reality television series, Sarah Palin's Alaska, in the form of a trailer for a fictional reality show called Jason Jones' Bayonne, New Jersey, whose portrayal of the city was characterized by prostitution, drugs, crime, pollution and a stereotypical Italian-American population. Bayonne Mayor Mark Smith criticized the sketch, saying, "Jon Stewart's unfortunate and inaccurate depiction of Bayonne represents a lame attempt at humor at the expense of a rock solid, all-American community". It is also referenced in the humorous song "The Rolling Mills of New Jersey" by John Roberts and Tony Barrand as the narrator's home town.

The comic strip Piranha Club (originally "Ernie"), drawn by Bud Grace, is set in and around Bayonne.

The ABC sci-fi comedy television series The Neighbors is about a family that moves from Bayonne into a fictional gated community, Hidden Hills, that is populated by aliens from another planet posing as humans.

The Best Show with Tom Scharpling records near Bayonne, and the city is frequently mentioned due to Associate Producer Mike Lisk (a.k.a. AP Mike) being a Bayonne native, who tends bar at Massa's Tavern, a local bar.

Religion The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Newark operates Catholic churches. Two in Bayonne, Blessed Miriam Teresa Demjanovich Church and St. John Paul II Church, were formed from consolidations, in 2016, because the number of people attending Catholic churches declined.

Demjanovich church is a merger of St. Andrew and St. Mary Star of the Sea churches, with the merged congregation keeping the two sites for worship. Reverend Alexander Santora in the Jersey Journal wrote that due to the efforts of the pastor, the Demjanovich merger "went off, however, without a hitch".

Three other churches, Our Lady of the Assumption, Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, and St. Michael/St. Joseph, merged into John Paul II in 2016. There were unsuccessful protests to keep Assumption open, and the archdiocese committed to closing that church.

Bayonne's Jewish community is served by Temple Beth Am (Reform), Temple Emanu-El (Conservative), Ohav Zedek (Orthodox), and Chabad (Orthodox).

Transport: Road As of May 2010, the city had a total of 76.55 miles (123.20 km) of roadways, of which 65.78 miles (105.86 km) were maintained by the city, 4.82 miles (7.76 km) are overseen by Hudson County, 4.04 miles (6.50 km) by the New Jersey Department of Transportation and 1.91 miles (3.07 km) are the responsibility of the New Jersey Turnpike Authority.

The Bayonne Bridge stretches 1,775 feet (541 m), connecting south to Staten Island over the Kill Van Kull. Originally constructed in 1931, the bridge underwent a Navigation Clearance Project that was completed in 2017 at a cost of $1.7 billion, that raised the bridge deck from 151 feet (46 m) above the water to 215 feet (66 m), allowing larger and more heavily laden cargo ships to clear their way under the bridge.

Several major roadways pass through the city. The Newark Bay Extension (Interstate 78) of the New Jersey Turnpike eastbound travels to Jersey City and, via the Holland Tunnel, Manhattan. Westbound, the Newark Bay Bridge provides access to Newark, Newark Liberty International Airport and the rest of the turnpike (Interstate 95).

Kennedy Boulevard (County Route 501) is a major thoroughfare along the west side of the city from the Bayonne Bridge north to Jersey City and North Hudson.

Route 440 runs along the east side of Bayonne, and the West Side of Jersey City, partially following the path of the old Morris Canal route. It connects to the Bayonne Bridge, I-78, and to Route 185 to Liberty State Park.

Transport: Public The Hudson-Bergen Light Rail has four stops in Bayonne, all originally from the former Central Railroad of New Jersey (CNJ). They are located at 45th Street, 34th Street, 22nd Street, all just east of Avenue E, and 8th Street (the southern terminal of the 8th Street-Hoboken Line) at Avenue C, which opened in January 2011.

Bus transportation is provided on three main north–south streets of the city: Broadway, Kennedy Boulevard, and Avenue C, both by the state-operated NJ Transit and several private bus lines. The Broadway line runs solely inside Bayonne city limits, while bus lines on Avenue C and Kennedy Boulevard run to various end points in Jersey City. The NJ Transit 120 runs between Avenue C in Bayonne and Battery Park in Downtown Manhattan during rush hours in peak direction while the 81 provides service to Jersey City.

MTA Regional Bus Operations provides bus service between Bayonne and Staten Island on the S89 route, which connects the 34th Street light rail station and the Eltingville neighborhood on Staten Island with no other stops in Bayonne. It is the first interstate bus service operated by the New York City Transit Authority.

For 114 years, the CNJ ran frequent service through the city. Trains ran north to the Central Railroad of New Jersey Terminal in Jersey City. Trains ran west to Elizabethport, Elizabeth and Cranford for points west and south. The implementation of the Aldene Connection in 1967 bypassed CNJ trains around Bayonne so that nearly all trains would either terminate at Newark Pennsylvania Station or at Hoboken Terminal. By 1973, a lightly used shuttle between Bayonne and Cranford that operated 20 times per day was the final remnant of service on the line. Until August 6, 1978, a shuttle service between Bayonne and Cranford retained the last leg of service with the CNJ trains.

Points of interest • The Bayonne Bridge is the fifth-longest steel arch bridge in the world. For the more than 45 years from its dedication in 1931 until the completion of the New River Gorge Bridge, the Bayonne Bridge was the world's longest such bridge. • Bergen Point • Constable Hook is the site of two burials grounds known as the Constable Hook Cemetery, numerous tank farms and the Bayonne Golf Club, situated at the city's highest point • Shooters Island, closed to the general public, is a 35 acres (14 ha) island—of which 7.5 acres (3.0 ha) are in Bayonne—that is operated as a bird sanctuary by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. • To the Struggle Against World Terrorism is a 100-foot (30 m) high sculpture by Zurab Tsereteli located at the end of the former Military Ocean Terminal that was given to the United States as an official gift of the Russian government as a memorial to the victims of the September 11 terrorist attacks and the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Russian President Vladimir Putin attended a groundbreaking ceremony in September 2005 and the monument was dedicated on September 11, 2006, in a ceremony attended by former President Bill Clinton as the keynote speaker.

Historic Places and museums See List of Registered Historic Places in Hudson County, New Jersey • Bayonne Truck House No. 1, home to Bayonne Firefighters Museum • Bayonne Trust Company, home to Bayonne Community Museum • First Reformed Dutch Church of Bergen Neck, constructed in 1866. • Robbins Reef Light – Built to serve ships heading into New York Harbor, the current structure at the site dates to 1883, replacing an earlier lighthouse constructed in 1839. • St. Vincent de Paul R.C. Church, constructed 1927–1930. • Hale-Whitney Mansion