Jersey City Embankment: History, 2025 Settlement, and Park Plan

The Jersey City Embankment is a half-mile stretch of massive stone-and-earth rail structure running through downtown Jersey City, built by the Pennsylvania Railroad between 1901 and 1905 and abandoned for freight use since 1999. After a 27-year preservation campaign and more than two decades of litigation, the Jersey City Council unanimously approved a settlement on November 12, 2025 that transfers roughly five acres of the structure to the city for a public park and greenway, while allowing a 40-story residential tower on its easternmost block.¹

What the Embankment Is

The structure, formally the Pennsylvania Railroad Harsimus Branch Embankment, traverses six residential blocks between roughly Marin Boulevard and Brunswick Street. Each block-long section measures about 400 feet long and 100 feet wide, and the walls of granite and sandstone block range from 13 to 27 feet high, reaching their tallest point at the western end.² At its peak it carried seven railway lines of freight — produce, live cattle, and other goods — down to the Harsimus Yard on the waterfront, where cargo was loaded onto barges for New York City.

It was designed by Jersey City civil engineer James J. Ferris to replace an earlier iron-and-timber elevated line that had proven too low and unstable for heavy traffic. Conrail, which inherited the line, ceased freight operations in 1999. The plate-girder bridges that once carried trains across the city streets between segments had already been dismantled and sold for scrap in 1996,² which is why today the embankment reads as a series of disconnected stone blocks rather than a continuous viaduct.

Left alone for decades, the elevated surface was reclaimed by vegetation. A 2002 ecological survey by naturalist Nancy Slowik documented the site as a 5.3-acre old field-meadow ecosystem with native grasses, herbs, and habitat supporting resident and migratory birds, insects, and other animals.³ An arborist study commissioned for the park project later identified more than 190 healthy trees on Block 2 alone.⁴

The structure carries layered historic protections. It was listed on the New Jersey State Register of Historic Places in 1999, determined eligible for the National Register in 2000, designated a Jersey City municipal landmark in 2002, and given additional local landmark status in 2006.⁵⁶ The city’s 2022 redevelopment plan prohibits demolition or removal of any portion of the stone structure on Blocks 2 through 6 and bans aggressive cleaning methods like sandblasting.

Why It Became a Fight

In 2005, Conrail sold the embankment property to Jersey City developer Steve Hyman for $3 million.⁷⁸⁹

The litigation moved slowly. The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia dismissed the case in 2010 for lack of standing, and the D.C. Circuit reversed in February 2012, finding Jersey City did have standing to challenge the sale before the STB.¹⁰¹¹⁷

While the federal case moved, local disputes multiplied. The Hymans stopped paying property taxes on the parcels in 2009, and after the city imposed tax liens and auctioned the properties, Victoria Hyman and her husband bought them back through an LLC called NZ Funding. A New Jersey appellate court overturned a lower-court ruling that had labeled the maneuver fraudulent, finding the Hymans met the tax sale law’s objective standard and that the city suffered no economic harm.¹² By then, Steve Hyman (who died in 2019) and his attorney had estimated the property’s value at between $50 million and $100 million.

In July 2021, the Jersey City Planning Board approved a study designating the embankment as an area in need of redevelopment.¹³ The city adopted the Sixth Street Embankment Redevelopment Plan on November 28, 2022, which authorized open space, trail, and transit uses alongside a mixed-use project — but only if a settlement could be reached with the property owners, Conrail, and the preservation parties.⁵

The 2025 Settlement

Negotiations involving Victoria Hyman and the Albanese Organization, which the Hymans had brought in roughly eight years earlier to handle the development side, produced a comprehensive deal. The Jersey City Council passed the settlement ordinance unanimously on November 12, 2025, with a companion 30-year tax abatement ordinance passing 8-0 and one abstention from Council President Joyce Watterman.¹

The core terms:

Approximately five acres across Blocks 2 through 8 transfer to the city as publicly owned open space. The transfer is contingent on withdrawal of all objections regarding the federal STB application concerning the original Conrail sale.⁸
The Albanese Organization develops Block 1, the easternmost parcel, as a 40-story residential building with 604 rental units, 30 of them designated affordable, and 172 parking spaces.⁸¹⁴
Public benefits valued at roughly $40 million include a pedestrian bridge between Blocks 1 and 2, a park on Block 2, upgrades to the Roberto Clemente Baseball Field, a grand staircase, a public elevator, and public restrooms.¹⁵
The 30-year payment-in-lieu-of-taxes agreement is projected to generate $122 million for the city, compared with an estimated $213 million in conventional property taxes over the same period. Acting Corporation Counsel Brittany Murray said the settlement was contingent on the abatement; without it, the deal would collapse.¹
Block 7 includes a walkway for the Essex-Hudson Greenway, and the overall design envisions connecting the embankment to the Bergen Arches corridor and the East Coast Greenway network.¹⁵

Annisia Cialone, the city’s Director of Housing, Economic Development, and Commerce, called the agreement the “best compromise possible.” Coalition President Stephen Gucciardo acknowledged the deal was not “perfect” but called it a “historic moment” necessary to end the litigation.¹

What the Park Will Look Like

The park plan follows what designers describe as a light-touch philosophy, keeping the stonework and the self-seeded forest largely in place rather than clearing them for a curated landscape. Sean Gallagher, chair of the Embankment Preservation Coalition’s design committee, has said the ecosystem “formed naturally without taxpayer-funded planting or maintenance” and that any future design should “build within this forest with a light touch.”¹⁶

Planned amenities include a great lawn and terrace on Block 2, lookout paths with views of the surrounding neighborhood, playgrounds for toddlers and school-age children, and landscaped seating areas on Block 1. The Roberto Clemente Baseball Field will receive upgraded turf. A pedestrian bridge is planned to span Manila Avenue between Blocks 1 and 2, and the design makes room for a future bridge over Marin Boulevard to tie the park into the Bergen Arches and the East Coast Greenway.⁴

The East Coast Greenway Alliance has identified the embankment as a recommended segment of its 3,000-mile Maine-to-Florida trail network since 2004, which is why connectivity is a core part of the design rather than an afterthought.¹⁶ Any construction or alteration on the embankment also requires review by the Jersey City Historic Preservation Commission and must follow the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties.⁵

What’s Still Unresolved

The settlement ended the litigation, but it did not finish the park. Final designs for the Block 2 park and the ball field upgrades remain subject to city approval,⁴ and city officials have acknowledged that substantial resources still need to be secured to finalize construction and open the park. The East Coast Greenway Alliance and the Embankment Preservation Coalition are soliciting public input on design, and volunteer cleanup events on the structure are ongoing.¹⁷

The greenway connection also carries open questions. The Bergen Arches, a mile-long former Erie Railroad corridor abandoned in 1957 and now owned by NJ Transit, is the logical link between the embankment and the broader Essex-Hudson Greenway. NJ Transit released plans in December 2025 for a $22 million bus transitway between Secaucus Junction and Jersey City through that corridor, raising concerns about whether adequate space will remain for pedestrian and cycling infrastructure. A 2024 feasibility study had recommended light rail, which Bergen Arches advocates view as compatible with greenway use.¹⁸ How that corridor gets built out will shape whether the embankment functions as an isolated downtown park or as a working segment of a regional trail network.

1
Hudson County View. Jersey City Council Passes Embankment Settlement After Decades of Litigation
2
NJCU Library. Pennsylvania Railroad Harsimus Branch Embankment
3
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Lower Hudson Comprehensive Restoration Plan
4
Jersey City Embankment Associates. Embankment Park
5
City of Jersey City. Sixth Street Embankment Redevelopment Plan
6
Embankment Preservation Coalition. Harsimus Branch and Embankment
7
NJ.com. Federal Agency to Host Community Forum on Sixth Street Embankment
8
Jersey Digs. Jersey City Embankment Development
9
Casemine. City of Jersey City v. Consolidated Rail Corp.
10
Law360. Jersey City Entitled to Sue Over Embankment Sale
11
Surface Transportation Board. Conrail Harsimus Branch Abandonment Proceeding
12
Hudson County View. Hymans Win Latest Court Clash With Jersey City Over Sixth Street Embankment
13
NJ.com. Jersey City Could Use Eminent Domain to Finally Get Sixth Street Embankment
14
Hudson Reporter. Jersey City Sixth Street Embankment Park
15
Hudson County View. Jersey City Council Reviews Proposed Embankment Settlement at Caucus
16
East Coast Greenway Alliance. Embankment Greenway Asset
17
East Coast Greenway Alliance. NJ Embankment Project
18
Jersey Digs. Bergen Arches Jersey City Update