Black Tom Pier

Black Tom Pier

Jersey City's role as the region's prime railroad center was vital to the operation of the Port of New York and New Jersey. Goods shipped east by train were transferred to New York and New Jersey piers by lighters and by car floats, introduced in 1866, or else loaded onto some of the few freighters which docked on the New Jersey side of the port. The pictures shown here were taken in 1954, in the waning years of the city's railroad industry. In the 1960s and 1970s, the interstate highway system expanded truck transit and container shipping changes the requirements of port facilities, making the railyards of the Jersey City waterfront obsolete.

Originally "Black Tom" was among the largest of the many rock outcroppings in Communipaw Cove, serving as a landmark as well as a hazard to be avoided by navigators. Silt from upriver cement mining, followed by refuse dumping by the Central Railroad, created a larger island during the mid-1800s. At one time a nitroglycerine factory operated - and exploded - on the enlarged Black Tom Island. In 1880 the National Docks company acquired right to the approach to Black Tom and began construction of a rail line and series of warehouses that would expand through the early 20th century, eventually connecting the island to the mainland. Subsequent fill built out land between the National Docks and Central Railroad properties, eliminating Communipaw Cove entirely.

Black Tom is most remembered as the site of a 1919 explosion triggered by German saboteurs. American munitions bound for Great Britain and allied powers during World War One, despite the US not having enetered into the conflict, was stored in the National Docks warehouses awaiting transfer to ships. This created a target for Axis action. Conflict with railroad companies and federal authorities over this dangerous practice and the aftermath of the attack was an early episode in the rise to power of Jersey City political boss Frank Hague.

11/16/1954