History
Information on this page current as of June 04, 2010The Palisades Interstate Park . . .
was created in 1900, in response to concern over the quarrying of the Palisades. The new park was formally dedicated in 1909. Before the creation of the park, all of the Palisades had been in private hands, the lower portion, along the river, consisting mostly of riverfront villages, the cliff top mostly either wood lots or the site of large summer estates.
The New Jersey Section maintains two historic sites:
Many of our other park areas and facilities also have rich histories (click on each to learn more):
Allison Park
Alpine Boat Basin & Picnic Area
Englewood Boat Basin & Picnic Area
Park Headquarters
Ross Dock
For historic photos, see Album Four.
The publications listed below may be of interest to those wanting to learn more about the NJ Section of the Palisades Interstate Park. They are available for purchase at the park and elsewhere. Click on a title for more information:
Cliff Notes
Published bimonthly and edited by the staff of the Kearney House, Cliff Notes is the visitor’s letter for the New Jersey Section of the Palisades Interstate Park. Click here to learn more about this free publication and to read selected articles from past issues.A Naturalist’s Guide to the Southern Palisades
Nancy Slowik (2006, paperback)
A New Deal for the Palisades
The staff of the Kearney House (2001, VHS/DVD)
New Jersey’s Palisades Interstate Park
E. Emory Davis & Eric Nelsen (2007, paperback)
See also, “Palisades Lit. 101.”
Allison Park is named for William O. Allison (1849-1924), who had an estate at this location. Allison was born in the “Undercliff” settlements, the son of fishermen and quarrymen. As a child he was made a ward of the Dana family, who owned a large estate on top of the cliffs. As an adult, he became one of the largest land-owners along the Palisades, and was the principal owner of the Palisades Mountain House, also at this site, when it burned down in 1884 (see “Fire on the Mountain”).
He built his estate atop the ruins of the Mountain House, and it burned down as well, in 1903. He became the first mayor of Englewood Cliffs, and sold some riverfront property to the Carpenter brothers for their quarry operation. This may have led, in part, to his becoming in his later years a staunch defender of the Palisades as a natural preserve, and his will left many acres of his holdings—including those at this site—in trust as parkland.
He also set out to chronicle the life of the “Undercliff” settlements; his notes from this project remain an invaluable research tool today.
Alpine Boat Basin & Picnic Area
This area was known throughout the nineteenth century as “Closter Landing,” “Upper Closter Landing,” “the Closter Dock,” or simply “Under the Closter Mountain.” It was part of the fishing villages and riverfront landings along the Palisades today often referred to collectively as the “Undercliff” settlements. Of the dozen or more houses at Closter Landing, only the Kearney House remains.
In the early part of the twentieth century, the Palisades Interstate Park operated a bathing beach here, and the stone picnic pavilion, built in 1934 by the Civil Works Administration and the New Jersey Emergency Relief Administration, used to have lockers on the lower floor. Most bathers came on the Yonkers Ferry, which landed at the south end of the Alpine Boat Basin. The ferry service was discontinued in 1957, after the completion of the Tappan Zee Bridge.
In summer 2009 an interpretive sign about life in the settlements along the Palisades was installed at the Alpine Area.
Englewood Boat Basin & Picnic Area
This site was also part of what has become known as the “Undercliff” settlements, and the northern part of the Englewood Picnic Area is still called “Bloomer’s Beach,” in recognition of the Bloomer family, who, among other well-established river families, lived in the area throughout the nineteenth century.
The Dyckman Ferry used to land at the southern end of the Englewood Area (the ferry terminal was near where the “Snack Shack” stands), until it was finally discontinued in 1942 due to competition from the George Washington Bridge (the Bridge opened in 1931). A bathing beach that operated at the Bloomer’s section was also closed around that time, due indirectly at least to the decline in the number of visitors brought about from the diminished ferry operations (see “The ‘Mystery’ of the Beaches” for a more complete discussion). The old stone bath house, built by the Civil Works Administration and the New Jersey Emergency Relief Administration, dates from 1934.
The ferry landing, in turn, was originally the site of a steamboat landing built by the owners of the Palisades Mountain House in the 1870s (see “Fire on the Mountain”). The spectacular Dyckman Hill Road is also a descendent of that venture, though it was greatly improved upon in the early twentieth century.
In summer 2009 an interpretive sign about bathing in the Hudson was installed at Bloomer’s Beach.
Built by the Henry Herbert Oltman family around 1928, the former estate known as “Penlyn” was taken over by the Park Commission in 1939. In 1956, our administrative offices were moved here, our former Administration Building having been demolished to make way for the Parkway (for a more complete history of the Oltman estate, see “Penlyn”).
Ross Dock Picnic Area is just north of the site of the Carpenter Brothers’ Quarry, the largest and most notorious of the Palisades quarries of the late nineteenth century. Much of the present-day picnic area was built on sunken barges and other landfill from the quarry period.
During the early twentieth century, Ross Dock was a summer camp for families from New York City (see “The ‘Mystery’ of the Beaches” for a description).
In December 2008 an interpretive sign about the preservation of the Palisades was installed at Ross Dock.
2010 Area Information & Fee Schedule (.pdf file, 4 pages)
