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Jersey City, New Jersey

Jersey City is the second-most populous city in the U.S. state of New Jersey, after Newark. It is the county seat of Hudson County, and is the county's most populous city and its largest (by area). As of the 2020 United States census, the city's population was 292,449, an increase of 44,852 (+18.1%) from the 2010 census count of 247,597,  in turn an increase of 7,542 (+3.1%) from the 240,055 enumerated at the 2000 census. The Population Estimates Program calculated a population of 291,657 for 2023, making it the 72nd-most populous municipality in the nation.

Constituting part of the New York metropolitan area, Jersey City is bounded on the east by the Hudson River and Upper New York Bay and on the west by the Hackensack River and Newark Bay. A port of entry, with 30.7 mi of waterfront and extensive rail infrastructure and connectivity, the city is an important transportation terminus and distribution and manufacturing center for the Port of New York and New Jersey. The Holland Tunnel and PATH mass transit services connect across the Hudson River with Manhattan. Redevelopment of the Jersey City waterfront has made the city one of the largest centers of banking and finance in the United States and has led to the district and city being nicknamed Wall Street West. Jersey City's proximity to Manhattan and its own financially based economy have propelled apartment rents in the city to some of the highest in the United States.

Lenape and New Netherland
The land that is now Jersey City was inhabited by the Lenape, a collection of Native American tribes (later called Delaware Indian). In 1609, Henry Hudson, seeking an alternate route to East Asia, anchored his small vessel Halve Maen (English: Half Moon) at Sandy Hook, Harsimus Cove and Weehawken Cove, and elsewhere along what was later named the North River. After spending nine days surveying the area and meeting its inhabitants, he sailed as far north as Albany. The contemporary flag of the city is a variation on the Prince's Flag from the Netherlands. The stripes are blue, white and yellow, with the center of the flag showing the city seal, depicting Hudson's ship, the Half Moon, and other modern vessels.

By 1621, the Dutch West India Company was organized to manage this new territory and in June 1623, New Netherland became a Dutch province, with headquarters in New Amsterdam. Michael Reyniersz Pauw received a land grant as patroon on the condition that he would establish a settlement of not fewer than fifty persons within four years. He chose the west bank of the Hudson River and purchased the land from the Lenape. This grant is dated November 22, 1630, and is the earliest known conveyance for what are now Hoboken and Jersey City. Pauw, however, was an absentee landlord who neglected to populate the area and was obliged to sell his holdings back to the Company in 1633. That year, a house was built at Communipaw for Jan Evertsen Bout, superintendent of the colony, which had been named Pavonia (the Latinized form of Pauw's name, which means "peacock"). Shortly after, another house was built at Harsimus Cove and became the home of Cornelius Van Vorst, who had succeeded Bout as superintendent, and whose family would become influential in the development of the city. Relations with the Lenape deteriorated, in part because of the colonialist's mismanagement and misunderstanding of the indigenous people, and led to series of raids and reprisals and the virtual destruction of the settlement on the west bank. During Kieft's War, approximately eighty Lenapes were killed by the Dutch in a massacre at Pavonia on the night of February 25, 1643.

Scattered communities of farmsteads characterized the Dutch settlements at Pavonia: Communipaw, Harsimus, Paulus Hook, Hoebuck, Awiehaken, Pamrapo, and other lands "behind Kill van Kull". The village of Bergen (located inside a palisaded garrison) was established on what is now Bergen Square in 1660 and officially chartered on September 5, 1661, as the state's first local civil government. As a result, it is regarded as the first permanent settlement and oldest municipality in what would become the state of New Jersey. In addition, the oldest surviving houses in Jersey City are of Dutch origin including the Newkirk House (1690), the Van Vorst Farmhouse (1740),  and the Van Wagenen House (1740).

19th century
In 1804, Alexander Hamilton, now a private citizen, was focused on increasing manufacturing in the greater New York City area. To that end, he helped to create the Associates of the Jersey Company which would lay the groundwork for modern Jersey City through private development. The consortium behind the company were predominantly Federalists who, like Hamilton, had been swept out of power in the election of 1800 by Thomas Jefferson and other Democratic-Republicans. Large tracts of land in Paulus Hook were purchased by the company with the titles owned by Anthony Dey, who was from a prominent old Dutch family, and his two cousins, Colonel Richard Varick, the former mayor of New York City (1789–1801), and Jacob Radcliff, a Justice of the New York Supreme Court who would later become mayor of New York City (twice) from 1810 to 1811 and again from 1815 to 1818. They laid out the city squares and streets that still characterize the neighborhood, giving them names also seen in Lower Manhattan or after war heroes (Grove, Varick, Mercer, Wayne, Monmouth and Montgomery among them).

Despite Hamilton's untimely death in August 1804, the Association carried on, though the enterprise was mired in a legal dispute between New York City and the state of New Jersey over who owned the waterfront. The unresolved dispute would continue until the Treaty of 1834 where New York City formally ceded control of Jersey City to New Jersey. Over that time though, the Jersey Company applied to the New Jersey Legislature to incorporate the Town of Jersey. The legislature enacted "An Act to incorporate the City of Jersey, in the County of Bergen" on January 28, 1820. Under the provision, five freeholders (including Varick, Dey, and Radcliff) were to be chosen as "the Board of Selectmen of Jersey City", thereby establishing the first governing body of the emerging municipality. The city was reincorporated on January 23, 1829, and again on February 22, 1838, at which time it became completely independent of North Bergen and was given its present name. On February 22, 1840, it became part of the newly created Hudson County.

During the 19th century, former slaves reached Jersey City on one of the four routes of the Underground Railroad that led to the city.

Soon after the Civil War, the idea arose of uniting all of the towns of Hudson County east of the Hackensack River into one municipality. A bill was approved by the state legislature on April 2, 1869, with a special election to be held on October 5, 1869. An element of the bill provide that only contiguous towns could be consolidated. While a majority of the voters across the county approved the merger, the only municipalities that had approved the consolidation plan and that adjoined Jersey City were Hudson City and Bergen City. The consolidation began on March 17, 1870, taking effect on May 3, 1870. Three years later the present outline of Jersey City was completed when Greenville agreed to merge into the Greater Jersey City.

In the late 1880s, three passenger railroad terminals opened in Jersey City next to the Hudson River (Pavonia Terminal, Exchange Place and Communipaw). Tens of millions of immigrants passed through these stations as they made their way westward from Ellis Island into the United States. The railroads transformed the geography of the city by building the Erie Cut as well as several large freight rail yards.

20th and 21st centuries
Jersey City was a dock and manufacturing town for much of the 19th and 20th centuries. Much like New York City, Jersey City has always been a destination for new immigrants to the United States. In its heyday before World War II, German, Irish, and Italian immigrants found work at Colgate, Chloro or Dixon Ticonderoga. In 1908, the first permanent disinfection system for drinking water in the U.S. was installed on the water supply for the city by John L. Leal. The Hudson Tubes opened in 1911, allowing passengers to take the train to Manhattan as an alternative to the extensive ferry system. The Black Tom explosion occurred on July 30, 1916, as an act of sabotage on American ammunition supplies by German agents to prevent the materials from being used by the Allies in World War I.

From 1917 to 1947, Jersey City was governed by Mayor Frank Hague. Originally elected as a candidate supporting reform in governance, the Jersey City History website says his name is "synonymous with the early twentieth century urban American blend of political favoritism and social welfare known as bossism". Hague ran the city with an iron fist while, at the same time, molding governors, United States senators, and judges to his whims. Boss Hague was known to be loud and vulgar, but dressed in a stylish manner, earning him the nickname "King Hanky-Panky". In his later years in office, Hague would often dismiss his enemies as "reds" or "commies". Hague lived like a millionaire, despite having an annual salary that never exceeded $8,500. He was able to maintain a fourteen-room duplex apartment in Jersey City, a suite at the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan, and a palatial summer home in the seaside community of Deal, and travel to Europe yearly in the royal suites of the best ocean liners.

After Hague's retirement from politics, a series of mayors including John V. Kenny, Thomas J. Whelan and Thomas F. X. Smith attempted to take control of Hague's organization, usually under the mantle of political reform. None were able to duplicate the level of power held by Hague, but the city and the county remained notorious for political corruption for years. By the 1970s the city experienced a period of urban decline that saw many of its wealthy residents leave for the suburbs, due to rising crime, civil unrest, political corruption, and economic hardship. From 1950 to 1980, Jersey City lost 75,000 residents, and from 1975 to 1982, it lost 5,000 jobs, or 9% of its workforce.

Beginning in the 1980s, development of the waterfront in an area previously occupied by rail yards and factories helped to stir the beginnings of a renaissance for Jersey City. The rapid construction of numerous high-rise buildings increased the population and led to the development of the Exchange Place financial district, also known as "Wall Street West", one of the largest financial centers in the United States. Large financial institutions such as UBS, Goldman Sachs, Chase Bank, Citibank, and Merrill Lynch occupy prominent buildings on the Jersey City waterfront, some of which are among the tallest buildings in New Jersey. Simultaneous to this building boom, the light-rail network was developed. With 18000000 sqft of office space as of 2011, it has the nation's 12th-largest downtown.

City Ordinance 13.097, passed in October 2013, requires employers with ten or more employees to offer up to five paid sick days a year. The bill impacts all businesses employing workers who work at least 80 hours a calendar year in Jersey City.

Geography
Jersey City is the seat of Hudson County and the second-most-populous city in New Jersey. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city had a total area of 21.13 square miles (54.74 km2), including 14.74 square miles (38.19 km2) of land and 6.39 square miles (16.55 km2) of water (30.24%). As of the 1990 census, it had the smallest land area of the 100 most populous cities in the United States.

Jersey City is bordered to the east by the Hudson River, to the north by Secaucus, North Bergen, Union City and Hoboken, to the west, across the Hackensack River, by Kearny and Newark, and to the south by Bayonne.

Jersey City includes most of Ellis Island (the parts awarded to New Jersey by the 1998 U.S. Supreme Court in the case of New Jersey v. New York). Liberty Island is surrounded by Jersey City waters in the Upper New York Bay. Given its proximity and various rapid transit connections to Manhattan, Jersey City (along with Hudson County as a whole) is sometimes referred to as New York City's sixth borough.

Jersey City (and most of Hudson County) is located on the peninsula known as Bergen Neck, with a waterfront on the east at the Hudson River and New York Bay and on the west at the Hackensack River and Newark Bay. Its north–south axis corresponds with the ridge of Bergen Hill, the emergence of the Hudson Palisades. The city is the site of some of the earliest European settlements in North America, which grew into each other rather than expanding from a central point. This growth and the topography greatly influenced the development of the sections of the city and its various neighborhoods.

Neighborhoods
The city is divided into six wards.

Bergen-Lafayette
Bergen-Lafayette, formerly Bergen City, New Jersey, lies between Greenville to the south and McGinley Square to the north, while bordering Liberty State Park and Downtown to the east and the West Side neighborhood to the west. Communipaw Avenue, Bergen Avenue, Martin Luther King Drive, and Ocean Avenue are main thoroughfares. The former Jersey City Medical Center complex, a cluster of Art Deco buildings on a rise in the center of the city, has been converted into residential complexes called The Beacon. Completed in 2016 at a cost of $38 million, (~$ in ) Berry Lane Park is located along Garfield Avenue in the northern section of Bergen-Lafayette; covering 17.5 acre, it is the largest municipal park in Jersey City.

Downtown Jersey City
Downtown Jersey City is the area from the Hudson River westward to the Newark Bay Extension of the New Jersey Turnpike (Interstate 78) and the New Jersey Palisades; it is also bounded by Hoboken to the north and Liberty State Park to the south.

Historic Downtown is an area of mostly low-rise buildings to the west of the waterfront that is highly desirable due to its proximity to local amenities and Manhattan. It includes the neighborhoods of Van Vorst Park and Hamilton Park, which are both square parks surrounded by brownstones. This historic downtown also includes Paulus Hook, the Village and Harsimus Cove neighborhoods. Newark Avenue & Grove Street, are the main thoroughfares in Downtown Jersey City, both have seen a lot of development and the surrounding neighborhoods have many stores and restaurants. The Grove Street PATH station is in the process of being renovated and a number of new residential buildings are being built around the stop, including a proposed 50-story building at 90 Columbus. Historic Downtown is home to many cultural attractions including the Jersey City Museum, the Hudson and Manhattan Railroad Powerhouse (planned to become a museum and artist housing) and the Harsimus Stem Embankment along Sixth Street, which a citizens' movement is working to turn into public parkland that would be modeled after the High Line in Manhattan.

Newport and Exchange Place are redeveloped waterfront areas consisting mostly of residential towers, hotels and office buildings that are among the tallest buildings in the city. Newport is a planned mixed-use community, built on the old Erie Lackawanna Railway yards, made up of residential rental towers, condominiums, office buildings, a marina, schools, restaurants, hotels, Newport Centre Mall, a waterfront walkway, transportation facilities, and on-site parking for more than 15,000 vehicles. Newport had a hand in the renaissance of Jersey City although, before ground was broken, much of the downtown area had already begun a steady climb (much like Hoboken).

The Heights
The Heights or Jersey City Heights is a district in the north end of Jersey City atop the New Jersey Palisades overlooking Hoboken to the east and Croxton in the Meadowlands to the west. Previously the city of Hudson City, The Heights was incorporated into Jersey City in 1869. The southern border of The Heights is generally considered to be north of Bergen Arches and the Depressed Highway, while Paterson Plank Road in Washington Park is its main northern boundary. Transfer Station is just over the city line. Its postal area ZIP Code is 07307. The Heights mostly contains two- and three-family houses and low rise apartment buildings, and is similar to North Hudson architectural style and neighborhood character.

Journal Square
Journal Square is a mixed-use district. The square was created in 1923, creating a broad intersection with Hudson Boulevard which itself had been widened in 1908. McGinley Square is located in close proximity to Journal Square, and has been described as an extension of it.

Greenville
Greenville is on the south end of Jersey City. In the 2010s, the neighborhood underwent a revitalization. Considered an affordable neighborhood in the New York City area, a number of Ultra-Orthodox Jews and young families purchased homes and built a substantial community there, attracted by housing that costs less than half of comparable homes in New York City. In a December 2019 shooting incident, three bystanders were killed in a kosher market in Greenville. The two assailants, who had earlier killed a police detective, were also shot and killed.

West Side
The West Side borders Greenville to the south and the Hackensack River to the west; it is also bounded to the east and north by Bergen-Lafayette and the broader Journal Square area, including McGinley Square. It consists of various diverse areas on both sides of West Side Avenue, one of Jersey City's leading shopping streets.

Climate
The climate in this area is characterized by hot, humid summers and generally mild to cool winters. According to the Köppen climate classification system, Jersey City has a humid subtropical climate similar to its parallel cities like Newark and New York City.

Demographics
As of the 2020 census, Jersey City had a population of 292,449, and a population density of 19835.1 PD/sqmi an increase of 44,852 residents (18.1%) from its 2010 census population of 247,597. Since it was believed the earlier population was under-counted, the 2010 census was anticipated with the possibility that Jersey City might become the state's most populated city, surpassing Newark. The city hired an outside firm to contest the results, citing the fact that development in the city between 2000 and 2010 substantially increased the number of housing units and that new populations may have been under-counted by as many as 30,000 residents based on the city's calculations. Preliminary findings indicated that 19,000 housing units went uncounted.

Per the American Community Survey's 2014–2018 estimates, Jersey City's age distribution was 7.7% of the population under 5, 13.2% between 6–18, 69% – from 19 to 64, and 10.1% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age 34.2 years. Females made up 50.8% of the population and there were 100.1 males per 100 females. 86.5% of the population graduated high school, while 44.9% of the population had a bachelor's degree or higher. 7.1% of residents under 65 were disabled, while 15.9% of residents live without health insurance.

There were 110,801 housing units and 102,353 households in 2018. The average household size was 2.57. The average per capita income was $36,453, and the median household income was $62,739. 18.7% of residents lived below the poverty line. 67.9% of residents 16+ were within the civilian labor force. The mean travel time to work for residents was 36.8 minutes. 28.6% of housing units are owner-occupied, with the median value of the homes being $344,200. The median gross rent in the city was $1,271.

Race and ethnicity
Jersey City has been called "one of the most diverse cities in the world". The city is a major port of entry for immigration to the United States and a major employment center at the approximate core of the New York City metropolitan area; and given its proximity to Manhattan, Jersey City has evolved a globally cosmopolitan ambiance of its own, demonstrating a robust and growing demographic and cultural diversity concerning metrics including"nationality, religion, race, and domiciliary partnership.

The U.S. Census accounts for race by two methodologies. "Race alone" and "Race alone less Hispanics" where Hispanics are delineated separately as if a separate race.

According to the 2020 U.S. Census, the racial makeup (including Hispanics in the racial counts) was 27.32% (79,905) White alone, 19.87% (58,103) Black alone, 0.66% (1,916) Native American alone, 28.01% (81,903) Asian alone, 0.06% (178) Pacific Islander alone, 14.35% (41,970) Other Race alone, and 9.74% (28,474) Multiracial or Mixed Race.

According to the 2020 U.S. Census, the racial and ethnic makeup (where Hispanics are excluded from the racial counts and placed in their own category) was 23.81% (69,624) White alone (non-Hispanic), 18.53% (54,199) Black alone (non-Hispanic), 0.22% (638) Native American alone (non-Hispanic), 27.84% (81,425) Asian alone (non-Hispanic), 0.03% (101) Pacific Islander alone (non-Hispanic), 1.44% (4,204) Other Race alone (non-Hispanic), 3.24% (9,481) Multiracial or Mixed Race (non-Hispanic), and 24.89% (72,777) Hispanic or Latino.

There were an estimated 55,493 non-Hispanic whites in Jersey City, according to the 2013–2017 American Community Survey, representing a 4.2% increase from 53,236 non-Hispanic whites enumerated in the 2010 United States census.

An estimated 63,788 African Americans resided in Jersey City, or 24.0% of the city's population in 2017, representing a slight decrease from 64,002 African Americans enumerated in the 2010 United States census. This is in contrast with Hudson County overall, where there were an estimated 84,114 African Americans, according to the 2013–2017 American Community Survey, representing a 2.3% increase from 83,925 African Americans enumerated in the county in the 2010 United States census. However, modest growth in the African immigrant population, most notably the growing Nigerian American and Kenyan American populations in Jersey City, is partially offsetting the decline in the city's American-born black population, which as a whole has been experiencing an exodus from northern New Jersey to the Southern United States. Approximately 76,637 Latino and Hispanic Americans lived in Jersey City, composing 28.8% of the population in 2017, representing a 12.3% increase from 68,256 Latino or Hispanic Americans enumerated in the 2010 United States census. Stateside Puerto Ricans, making up a third of the city's Latin American or Hispanic population, constituted the largest Hispanic group in Jersey City. While Cuban Americans are not as highly concentrated in Jersey City as they are in northern Hudson County, Jersey City has hosted the annual Cuban Parade and Festival of New Jersey at Exchange Place on its downtown waterfront since it was established in 2001.

An estimated 67,526 Asian Americans live in Jersey City, constituting 25.4% of the city's population, representing a 15.2% increase from 58,595 Asian Americans enumerated in the 2010 United States census. India Square, also known as "Little India" or "Little Bombay", home to the highest concentration of Asian Indians in the Western Hemisphere, is a rapidly growing Indian American ethnic enclave in Jersey City. Indian Americans constituted 10.9% of the overall population of Jersey City in 2010, the highest proportion of any major U.S. city. India Square has been home to the largest outdoor Navratri festivities in New Jersey as well as several Hindu temples; while an annual, color-filled spring Holi festival has taken place in Jersey City since 1992, centered upon India Square and attracting significant participation and international media attention. In 2017 there were an estimated 31,578 Indian Americans in Jersey City, representing a 16.5% increase from 27,111 Indian Americans enumerated in the 2010 United States census. Filipino Americans, numbering 16,610 residents, made up 6.2% of Jersey City's population in 2017. The Five Corners district serves as a prominent Little Manila of Jersey City, being home to a thriving Filipino community that forms the second-largest Asian-American subgroup in the city. A variety of Filipino restaurants, shippers and freighters, doctors' offices, bakeries, stores, and even an office of The Filipino Channel have made Newark Avenue their home in recent decades. The largest Filipino-owned grocery store on the East Coast, Phil-Am Food, has been established on the avenue since 1973. An array of Filipino-owned businesses can also be found in the West Side section of the city, where many residents are of Filipino descent. In 2006, Red Ribbon Bakeshop, one of the Philippines' most famous food chains, opened its first branch on the East Coast: a new pastry outlet in Jersey City. Manila Avenue in Downtown Jersey City was named for the Philippine capital city because of the many Filipinos who built their homes on the street during the 1970s. A memorial dedicated to the Filipino-American veterans of the Vietnam War was built in a small square on Manila Avenue. A park and statue dedicated to Jose P. Rizal, a national hero of the Philippines, are also located in Downtown Jersey City. Furthermore, Jersey City hosts the annual Philippine–American Friendship Day Parade, an event that occurs yearly on the last Sunday in June. The City Hall of Jersey City raises the Philippine flag in correlation with this event and as a tribute to the contributions of the local Filipino community. The city's annual Santacruzan procession has taken place since 1977 along Manila Avenue.

Behind English and Spanish, Tagalog is the third-most-common language spoken in Jersey City.

Jersey City was home to an estimated 9,379 Chinese Americans in 2017, representing a notably rapid growth of 66.2% from the 5,643 Chinese Americans enumerated in the 2010 United States census. Chinese nationals have also been obtaining EB-5 immigrant visas by investing US$500,000 apiece in new Downtown Jersey City residential skyscrapers.

New Jersey's largest Vietnamese American population resides in Jersey City. There were an estimated 1,813 Vietnamese Americans in Jersey City, according to the 2013–2017 American Community Survey, representing a 12.8% increase from 1,607 Vietnamese Americans enumerated in the 2010 United States census.

Arab Americans numbered an estimated 18,628 individuals in Hudson County per the 2013–2017 American Community Survey, representing 2.8% of the county's total population. Arab Americans are the second- highest percentage in New Jersey after Passaic County. Arab Americans are most concentrated in Jersey City, led by Egyptian Americans, including the largest population of Coptic Christians in the United States.

Sexual orientation and gender identity
There were 2,726 same-sex couples in Hudson County in 2010, with Jersey City being the hub, prior to the commencement of same-sex marriages in New Jersey on October 21, 2013. Jersey City is considered one of the most LGBT-friendly communities in New Jersey.

Religion
Nearly 59.6% of Jersey City's inhabitants are religious adherents, of which 46.2% are Catholic Christians and 7.3% are Protestant Christians. Muslims constituted 3.4% of religious adherents in Jersey City, with local Latino and Hispanics being the largest demographic converting to Islam after Black or African Americans.

South Asian religions including Buddhism, Hinduism, and Sikhism make up 1.5% of the city's religious demographic, with Judaism at 0.6%. Jersey City has a growing Orthodox Jewish population, centered in the Greenville neighborhood.

Economy
Jersey City is a regional employment center with over 100,000 private and public sector jobs, which creates a daytime swell in population. Many jobs are in the financial and service sectors, as well as in shipping, logistics, and retail.

Jersey City's tax base grew by US$136 million in 2017, giving Jersey City the largest municipal tax base in the State of New Jersey. As part of a 2017 revaluation, the city's property tax base is expected to increase from $6.2 billion to $26 billion.

Wall Street West
Jersey City's Hudson River waterfront, from Exchange Place to Newport, is known as Wall Street West and has over 13 million square feet of Class A office space. One-third of the private sector jobs in the city are in the financial services sector: more than 60% are in the securities industry, 20% are in banking and 8% in insurance.

Jersey City is home to the headquarters of Verisk Analytics and Lord Abbett, a privately held money management firm. Companies such as Computershare, ADP, IPC Systems, and Fidelity Investments also conduct operations in the city. In 2014, Forbes magazine moved its headquarters to the district, having been awarded a $27 million tax grant in exchange for bringing 350 jobs to the city over ten years.

Retail
Jersey City has several shopping districts, some of which are traditional main streets for their respective neighborhoods, such as Central, Danforth, and West Side Avenues. Journal Square is a major commercial district. Newport Mall is a regional shopping area.

Portions of the city are part of an Urban Enterprise Zone (UEZ). Jersey City was selected in 1983 to be part of the initial group of 10 zones chosen 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 6.625% rate charged statewide) at eligible merchants. Established in November 1992, the city's Urban Enterprise Zone status expires in November 2023. About one third of Jersey City is included in the state's largest Urban Enterprise Zone.

Port Jersey
Port Jersey is an intermodal freight transport facility that includes a container terminal located on the Upper New York Bay in the Port of New York and New Jersey. The municipal border of the Hudson County cities of Jersey City and Bayonne runs along the long pier extending into the bay.

The north end of the facility houses the Greenville Yard, a rail yard located on a manmade peninsula that was built in the early 1900s by the Pennsylvania Railroad,

The central area of the facility contains GCT Bayonne, a major post-panamax shipping facility operated by Global Container Terminals that underwent a major expansion in June 2014. The largest ship ever to call at the Port of New York-New Jersey, the MOL Benefactor, docked at Port Jersey in July 2016 after sailing from China through the newly widened Panama Canal.

Other
Goya Foods, which had been headquartered in adjacent Secaucus, opened a new headquarters including a 600000 sqft warehouse and distribution center in Jersey City in April 2015.

In 2014, Paul Fireman proposed a 95-story tower for Jersey City that would have included a casino. The project, which was endorsed by Mayor Steven Fulop, would cost an estimated $4.6 billion (~$ in ). In February 2014, New Jersey State Senate President Stephen Sweeney argued that Jersey City, among other distressed cities, could benefit from a casino—were construction of one outside of Atlantic City eventually permitted by New Jersey.

In 2020, Merck & Co spin-off Organon International agreed to locate its headquarters at Goldman Sachs Tower.

Notable landmarks

 * Statue of Liberty National Monument, Ellis Island and Liberty Island (Liberty Island and part of Ellis Island are located in New York, but both islands are closer to the New Jersey shoreline.)
 * Liberty Science Center
 * The Katyń Memorial by well-known Polish-American artist Andrzej Pitynski on Exchange Place is the first memorial of its kind to be raised on American soil to honor the dead of the Katyń Forest Massacre.
 * The Colgate Clock, promoted by Colgate-Palmolive as the largest in the world, sits in Jersey City and faces Lower New York Bay and Lower Manhattan (it is clearly visible from Battery Park in lower Manhattan). The clock, which is 50 ft in diameter with a minute hand weighing 2200 lb, was erected in 1924 to replace a smaller one that was relocated to a plant in Jeffersonville, Indiana.

 * The Landmark Loew's Jersey Theatre, one of the five Loew's Wonder Theatres constructed in the 1920s and the only one located outside of New York City, is located in Journal Square. Currently presenting classic films, live performances, and events while the theatre undergoes restoration by volunteers.
 * The White Eagle Hall is a renovated and re-opened historic theater. Constructed in 1910, it had served as the practice gym for the Saint Anthony High School Friars basketball program.

Art and culture
Based upon a 2011 survey of census data on the number of artists as a percentages of the population, The Atlantic magazine called Jersey City the 10th-most-artistic city in the United States.

Museums and libraries
The Jersey City Free Public Library has a Main Library and nine branches.

Liberty State Park is home to Central Railroad of New Jersey Terminal, the Interpretive Center, and Liberty Science Center, an interactive science and learning center. The center, which first opened in 1993 as New Jersey's first major state science museum, has science exhibits, the world's largest IMAX Dome theater, numerous educational resources, and the original Hoberman sphere. From the park, ferries travel to both Ellis Island and the Immigration Museum and Liberty Island, site of the Statue of Liberty.

The Jersey City Museum, Mana Contemporary, and the Museum of Russian Art, which specializes in Soviet Nonconformist Art, include permanent collections and special exhibits. Some stations of the Hudson Bergen Light Rail feature public art exhibitions, including those at Exchange Place, Danforth Avenue and Martin Luther King Drive station.

Festivals and events
Jersey City is home to several annual visual and performing arts festivals, fairs, and other events. These include Jersey City Art & Studio Tour (JCAST), a city-sponsored visual art showcase founded in 1990, Art Fair 14C, a non-profit juried exhibition for New Jersey artists, and Your Move Modern Dance Festival, which was founded in 2010 and continues to be produced by Art House Productions. Jersey City has also hosted JC Fridays, a city-wide quarterly seasonal arts festival organized by Art House Productions each March, June, September, and December since 2006. Art House Productions also produces the Jersey City Comedy Festival (formerly known as the 6th Borough Comedy Festival), which presents stand up, improv, and sketch comedy.

Since 1992, the Hudson Shakespeare Company has been the resident Shakespeare festival of Hudson County performing a free Shakespeare production for each month of the summer throughout various parks in the city. The group regularly performs at Hamilton Park (9th Street & Jersey Avenue), Van Vorst Park (Jersey Avenue & Montgomery Street), and The Historic Jersey City and Harsimus Cemetery (435 Newark Avenue).

The Golden Door Film Festival has taken place since 2011.

In media
Jersey City is located in the New York media market, and most of its daily papers are available for sale or delivery. The daily newspaper The Jersey Journal, formerly located at its namesake Journal Square, covers Hudson County, its morning daily, Hudson Dispatch now defunct. The Jersey City Reporter is part of The Hudson Reporter group of local weeklies. The Jersey City Independent is a web-only news outlet that covers politics and culture in the city. The River View Observer is another weekly published in the city and distributed throughout the county. Another countywide weekly, El Especialito, also serves the city. The Jersey City Independent is an online newspaper covering Jersey City and surrounding municipalities. It also publishes JCI Magazine, a print quarterly magazine. The Daily News maintains extensive publishing and distribution facilities at Liberty Industrial Park.

WSNR AM 620 is licensed to Jersey City.

WFMU 91.1FM (WMFU 90.1 FM in the Hudson Valley), the longest-running freeform radio station in the United States, moved to Jersey City in 1998.

The music video for the 1985 single "Minus Zero" by the Polish band Lady Pank, features Jersey City as a backdrop.

The 1989 film Bloodhounds of Broadway, which starred Madonna, Matt Dillon, and Jennifer Grey, was partially filmed in Jersey City.

Jersey City was the filming location for the debut season of the 2012 reality television series Snooki & JWoww, a spinoff of Jersey Shore that starred Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi and Jennifer "JWoww" Farley living downtown at a former firehouse at 38 Mercer Street.

Local
Jersey City is governed under the Faulkner Act (mayor–council) form of municipal government. 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 nine-member City Council. The city council has six members elected from wards and three elected at-large, all elected to concurrent four-year terms on a non-partisan basis as part of the November general election. Ward boundaries were redrawn based on the results of the 2020 United States census to rebalance wards based on population changes. The redistricting led to controversy.

, the mayor is Steven Fulop, whose term of office ends December 31, 2025. Members of the City Council are Council President Joyce Watterman (at large), Richard Boggiano (Ward C – Journal Square), Amy M. DeGise (at large), Frank E. Gilmore (Ward F – Bergen/Lafayette), Mira Prinz-Arey (Ward B – West Side), Denise Ridley (Ward A – Greenville), Daniel Rivera (at large), Yousef J. Saleh (Ward D – The Heights), and James Solomon (Ward E – Downtown), all of whom are serving concurrent terms of office that end December 31, 2025.

In April 2020, Yousef J. Saleh was appointed to fill the Ward D seat that became vacant following the death earlier that month of Michael Yun from complications related to COVID-19; Saleh served on an interim basis until the November 2020 general election, when voters chose him to serve the balance of the term of office.

The Business Administrator is John J. Metro; the City Clerk is Sean J. Gallagher.

Federal, state and county representation
Jersey City is split between the 8th and 10th Congressional Districts and is part of New Jersey's 31st and 32nd state legislative districts.

Prior to the 2011 reapportionment following the 2010 census, Jersey City had been in the 31st, 32nd and the 33rd state legislative districts. Prior to the 2010 census, Jersey City had been split between the NJ's 9th congressional district, 10th Congressional District and the NJ's 13th congressional district, a change made by the New Jersey Redistricting Commission that took effect in January 2013, based on the results of the November 2012 general elections. The split, which went into effect in 2013, placed 111,678 residents living in the city's north and east in the 8th District, while 139,519 residents in the southwest portion of the city were placed in the 10th District.

Politics
As of March 23, 2011, there was a total of 120,229 registered voters in Jersey City, of whom 58,194 (48.4%) were registered as Democrats, 7,655 (6.4%) were registered as Republicans, and 54,293 (45.2%) were registered as Unaffiliated. There were 87 voters registered to other parties.

In the 2012 presidential election, Democrat Barack Obama received 85.5% of the vote (64,052 cast), ahead of Republican Mitt Romney with 13.5% (10,120 votes), and other candidates with 1.0% (751 votes), among the 75,506 ballots cast by the city's 133,197 registered voters (583 ballots were spoiled), for a turnout of 56.7%. In the 2008 presidential election, Democrat Barack Obama received 81.8% of the vote (65,780 cast), ahead of Republican John McCain with 16.8% (13,529 votes) and other candidates with 0.7% (584 votes), among the 80,381 ballots cast by the city's 139,158 registered voters, for a turnout of 57.8%. In the 2004 presidential election, Democrat John Kerry received 74.5% of the vote (52,979 ballots cast), out polling Republican George W. Bush with 22.8% (16,216 votes) and other candidates with 0.5% (559 votes), among the 71,130 ballots cast by the city's 119,723 registered voters, for a turnout percentage of 59.4.

In the 2013 gubernatorial election, Democrat Barbara Buono received 66.5% of the vote (20,421 cast), ahead of Republican Chris Christie with 31.8% (9,784 votes), and other candidates with 1.7% (514 votes), among the 32,347 ballots cast by the city's 139,265 registered voters (1,628 ballots were spoiled), for a turnout of 23.2%. In the 2009 gubernatorial election, Democrat Jon Corzine received 76.2% of the vote (29,817 ballots cast), ahead of Republican Chris Christie with 18.7% (7,336 votes), Independent Chris Daggett with 3.2% (1,263 votes) and other candidates with 0.9% (371 votes), among the 39,143 ballots cast by the city's 120,269 registered voters, yielding a 32.5% turnout.

Emergency services

 * The Jersey City Fire Department has 667 uniformed firefighters and is the state's largest municipal fire department. Established as a volunteer department in 1829, the department became a paid professional organization in 1871. Jersey City is a member of the Metro USAR Strike Team, which consists of nine north Jersey fire departments.
 * The Jersey City Police Department has more than 950 sworn officers. The creation of the department dates back to 1829 with the first appointment of watchmen. The Patrol Division is divided into four districts including the North, East, West and South areas of the city.
 * Emergency Medical Services are provided by the Jersey City Medical Center under RWJBarnabas Health.

Colleges and universities
Jersey City is home to New Jersey City University and Saint Peter's University.

Hudson County Community College is a junior college located in the Journal Square area offering courses to help students transition into a larger university.

The Newark-based New Jersey Institute of Technology has an annex at 101 Hudson Street. The University of Phoenix has a facility at Newport, and Rutgers University offers MBA classes at Harborside Financial Center.

Public schools
The Jersey City Public Schools serve students in pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade. The district is one of 31 former Abbott districts statewide that were established pursuant to the decision by the New Jersey Supreme Court in Abbott v. Burke which are now referred to as "SDA Districts" based on the requirement for the state to cover all costs for school building and renovation projects in these districts under the supervision of the New Jersey Schools Development Authority. As of the 2021–22 school year, the district, comprised 39 schools, had an enrollment of 27,134 students and 2,110.8 classroom teachers (on an FTE basis), for a student–teacher ratio of 12.9:1.

High schools in the district (with 2021–22 enrollment data from the National Center for Education Statistics) are William L. Dickinson High School Academy of the Sciences (2,046; 9–12), James J. Ferris High School Academy of International Enterprise (1,292; 9–12), Infinity Institute (485; 6–12), Innovation High School (286; 9–12), Liberty High School (210; 9–12), Lincoln High School Academy of Governance and Social Sciences (949; 9–12), Dr. Ronald E. McNair Academic High School (704; 9–12), Renaissance Institute (NA; 9–12) and Henry Snyder High School Academy of the Arts (800; 9–12).

Dr. Ronald E. McNair Academic High School was the first-ranked public high school in New Jersey out of 322 schools statewide, in New Jersey Monthly magazine's September 2010 cover story on the state's "Top Public High Schools", after being ranked second in 2008 out of 316 schools. and was selected as 41st best high school in the United States in Newsweek magazine's national 2011 survey. William L. Dickinson High School is the oldest high school in the city and one of the largest schools in Hudson County in terms of student population. Opened in 1906 as the Jersey City High School it is one of the oldest school sites in the city, it is a four-story Beaux-Arts building located on a hilltop facing the Hudson River.

Among Jersey City's elementary and middle schools is Academy I Middle School and Frank R. Conwell Middle School #4, which is part of the Academic Enrichment Program for Gifted Students. Another school is Alexander D. Sullivan P.S. #30, an ESL magnet school in the Greenville district, which serves nearly 800 Pre-k through 5th grade students.

The Hudson County Schools of Technology (which also has campuses in North Bergen and Secaucus) has a campus in Jersey City, which includes County Prep High School.

Jersey City also has 12 charter schools, which are run under a special charter granted by the Commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Education, including the Mathematics, Engineering, Technology and Science Charter School (for grades 6–12) and the Dr. Lena Edwards Charter School (for K–8), which were approved in January 2011. BelovED Community Charter School opened in 2012.

Catholic schools
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Newark maintains a network of elementary and secondary Catholic schools that serve every area of Jersey City. Hudson Catholic Regional High School is operated by the Archdiocese, while Saint Dominic Academy and St. Peter's Preparatory School are private, religiously affiliated schools. St. Mary High School closed in June 2011 due to declining enrollment. St. Anthony High School, a prep basketball powerhouse known for its success under Bob Hurley and his 26 state championships in 39 years as a coach, closed in June 2017 due to declining funding and enrollment.

Catholic K-8 elementary schools include Our Lady of Czestochowa School, Sacred Heart School, Saint Aloysius Elementary Academy, St. Joseph School and St. Nicholas School. In 2015, Our Lady of Czestochowa School was one of 15 schools in New Jersey, and one of six private schools, recognized as a National Blue Ribbon School in the exemplary high performing category by the United States Department of Education.

In the face of declining enrollment and rising expenses, the Newark Archdiocese closed Our Lady of Mercy Academy (founded in 1964) and Resurrection School at the end of the 2012–13 school year. St. Anne School closed at the end of the 2011–12 school year after 112 years, as enrollment declined from 700 students in 1976 to 240 in 2010–11 and 188 in the school's final year of operation.

Other private schools
Other private high schools in Jersey City include First Christian Pentecostal Academy and Stevens Cooperative School. Kenmare High School is operated through the York Street Project as part of an effort to reduce rates of poverty in households headed by women, through a program that offers small class sizes, individualized learning and development of life skills. The French American Academy, located in the century-old three-story building of the former St. Mary's High School, is a private bilingual school PK-3. A number of other private schools are also available. Genesis Educational Center is a private Christian school located in downtown Jersey City for ages newborn through 8th grade. The Jersey City Art School is a private art school located in downtown Jersey City for all ages.

Transportation
Of all Jersey City commuters, 8.17% walk to work, and 46.62% take public transit. This is the second highest percentage of public transit riders of any city with a population of 100,000+ in the United States, behind only New York City and ahead of Washington, D.C. 40.67% of Jersey City households do not own an automobile, the second-highest of all cities in the United States with 50,000 to 250,000 residents.

Air

 * Newport Helistop Heliport, at Hudson River at Newport

Rail

 * Hudson-Bergen Light Rail: One of the most popular forms of transportation in the city. Of the 24 HBLR stations that connect its three terminus points, 13 are located in Jersey City.
 * PATH: 24-hour rapid transit system with four stations in Jersey City: Exchange Place, Newport, Grove Street, and Journal Square. Service goes to Hoboken Terminal in Hoboken, 33rd Street station in Midtown Manhattan, World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan, and Newark Penn Station in Newark. At the last station, inter-state Amtrak connections can be made.
 * Hoboken Terminal, straddling the city's northeast corner: Main Line (to Suffern, and in partnership with MTA/Metro-North, express service to Port Jervis), Bergen County Line, and Pascack Valley Line, all via Secaucus Junction (where transfer is possible to Northeast Corridor Line); Montclair-Boonton Line and Morris and Essex Lines (both via Newark Broad Street Station); North Jersey Coast Line (limited service as Waterfront Connection via Newark Penn Station to Long Branch and Bay Head); Raritan Valley Line (limited service via Newark Penn).

Bus
The Journal Square Transportation Center, Exchange Place and Hoboken Terminal are major origination/destination points for buses. Service is available to numerous points in Jersey City, Hudson County, and some suburban areas as well as to Newark on the 1, 2, 6, 8, 9, 10, 14, 22, 23, 64, 67, 68, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 119, 123, 125, 319 lines.

Also serving Jersey City are various lines operated by Academy Bus. Increased use of jitneys, locally known as dollar vans, has greatly affected travel patterns in Hudson County, leading to decreased bus ridership on traditional bus lines. After studies examining existing systems and changes in public transportation usage patterns it was determined that a Journal Square-Bayonne bus rapid transit system should be investigated. In 2012, the Board of Chosen Freeholders authorized the identification of possible BRT corridors.

A&C Bus Corporation, an independent bus company established in 1927 and headquartered in Jersey City had operated the 30, 31, 32 and 33 bus routes, using a fleet of buses leased from NJ Transit. In July 2023, A&C announced that it would discontinue operations. In October 2023, the four routes that had been operated by A&C were taken over by NJ Transit bus operations.

Since 2016, two Taiwanese airlines, China Airlines and EVA Air, have provided private bus services to and from John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City for customers based in New Jersey. These bus services stop in Jersey City.

Via on-demand public transit
In February 2020, the city launched its on-demand transit system in partnership with Via Transportation. The city-run microtransit service, Via Jersey City, complements and extends the existing public transit networks, providing better connections between residential neighborhoods, business districts, government facilities, PATH stations, and ferry and light rail stops in the north and south regions of the city. Commuters can use the Via app to book an on-demand ride from their smartphone. As of March 2021, Via Jersey City was expanding to provide a weekend service.

Water

 * NY Waterway ferries operate between Paulus Hook Ferry Terminal, Liberty Harbor and Port Liberté, Jersey City to Manhattan at Battery Park City Ferry Terminal, Pier 11/Wall Street, and West Midtown Ferry Terminal, where free transfer is available to a variety of "loop" buses.
 * Statue Cruises provides service to and between Ellis Island and Liberty Island
 * Liberty Landing Ferry operates ferries between Liberty Landing Marina, Warren Street and the Battery Park City Ferry Terminal at Brookfield Place (New York City).

Road

, the city had a total of 218.57 mi of roadways, of which 189.88 mi were maintained by the municipality, 10.34 mi by Hudson County and 12.23 mi by the New Jersey Department of Transportation, 1.09 mi by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and 5.03 mi by the New Jersey Turnpike Authority.

 * Holland Tunnel: From Boyle Plaza in downtown Jersey City to its eastern terminus at Canal Street, Manhattan (carries Interstate 78 and Route 139)
 * Highways include the New Jersey Turnpike Extension (Interstate 78); the Pulaski Skyway (U.S. Route 1/9), Route 7, Route 139, Route 185 and Route 440.

Bike
A part of the East Coast Greenway, a planned unbroken bike route from Maine to the Florida Keys, will travel through the city. In June 2012, part of the route was officially designated in Lincoln Park and over the Lincoln Highway Hackensack River Bridge. Both the Hudson River Waterfront Walkway and Hackensack RiverWalk are bicycle friendly.

In April 2012, the city initiated the Morris Canal Greenway Plan to investigate the establishment of a greenway, including a bicycle path, that would follow the route of the Morris Canal to the greatest extent possible. In the same month, the city established bikes lanes along the length Grove Street, originally meant to temporary. In December 2012, the city announced that Grove Street lanes would become permanent and that it would add an additional 54 mi of both dedicated and shared bike lanes.

The Harbor Ring is an initiative to create a 50-mile bike route along the Lower Hudson River, Upper New York Bay, and Kill van Kull that would incorporate bike paths in the city.

In 2013, the city simplified the application and reduced the cost for business and residences to install bike racks as well as making them obligatory for certain new construction projects.

Also in 2013, Hudson County had initiated exploration of a bike-share program. Jersey City, Hoboken and Weehawken intended to operate the program starting in 2014 but delayed the launch due to lack of sponsorship. The revamped program officially launched on September 21, 2015, as Citi Bike with membership working in Jersey City and New York City. On May 3, 2021, Citi Bike eventually expanded to neighboring Hoboken with 15 stations and about 200 bikes.

Modal characteristics
Jersey City has a high percentage of residents who commute without a car. In 2015, 40.1 percent of city Jersey City households were without a car, which decreased to 37.1 percent in 2016. The national average was 8.7 percent in 2016. Jersey City averaged 0.85 cars per household in 2016, compared to a national average of 1.8 per household.

Sister cities
Sister cities of Jersey City are:

 * Cusco, Peru (1988)
 * Karpathos, Greece (1992)
 * Changwon, South Korea (1993)
 * New Delhi, India (1993)
 * Ahmedabad, India (1994)
 * Nantong, China (1994)
 * Ozamiz, Philippines (1995)
 * Jerusalem, Israel (1997)
 * Oviedo, Spain (1998)
 * Sant'Arsenio, Italy (1999)
 * Kolkata (Calcutta), India (2001)
 * Saint John's, Antigua and Barbuda (2002)

 * Palatka, Florida, United States (2016)
 * Gomoa West District, Ghana (2018)
 * Indrawati, Nepal (2018)
 * Beit Shemesh, Israel (2022)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Jersey City, New Jersey


text:
Kearny, New Jersey

Kearny is a town in the western part of Hudson County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey, and a suburb of Newark. As of the 2020 United States census, the town's population was 41,999, an increase of 1,315 (+3.2%) from the 2010 census count of 40,684,  which in turn reflected an increase of 171 (+0.4%) from the 40,513 counted in the 2000 census.

Kearny is named after Civil War general Philip Kearny. It began as a township formed by an act of the New Jersey Legislature on April 8, 1867, from portions of Harrison Township. Portions of the township were taken on July 3, 1895, to form East Newark. Kearny was incorporated as a town on January 19, 1899, based on the results of a referendum held two days earlier. The Arlington section of town was named for Arlington Station on the Erie Railroad at the Arlington Mill plant, owned by Arlington Mills of Lawrence, Massachusetts.

Colonial roots
The area of Kearny Township, created in 1867, had been part of the original Crown Grant of 30,000 acre obtained by Major William Sandford of Barbados on July 4, 1668. Major Sandford named it New Barbadoes Neck after his old home. As was the custom of the time, the Major paid 20 pounds sterling to Chief Tantaqua of the Hackensack tribe for all their reserve rights and titles.

Sanford's Uncle, Major Nathaniel Kingsland acquired the property in 1708 and sold the upper western tract of the Grant for 300 pounds sterling to Captain Arent Schuyler two years later. The new purchase included present-day Kearny, North Arlington, Lyndhurst and Kingsland.

Shortly after Schuyler's purchase of his new homestead, a peculiar green stone was uncovered. It was sent to England for analysis and he learned that it contained 80% copper. His opening of a copper mine brought the first steam engine to America from England; it was used to pump out the deep mine shaft. The engine was secretly delivered by its engineer, Josiah Hornblower. The engine and mines were destroyed by fire in 1772 and remained idle for some years.

Schuyler Mansion played a role during the American Revolutionary War Era. When Lord Howe of England took possession of New York Harbor, the proximity of Schuyler Mansion drew many of his officers. They generally traveled over a road that today is referred to as the Belleville Turnpike, which was originally constructed in 1759 using cedar logs from the nearby swamps.

During September 1777, General Henry Clinton, head of the British Expeditionary Forces in America, selected Schuyler Mansion for his headquarters during one of his more important raiding operations, which included the famed Battle of Second River. The Mansion stood until 1924, a period of 214 years, when it was torn-down by a land development company, despite the company's offers to transfer the land to an organization that would be able to pay to maintain the property.

19th century
In the middle 19th century, Kearny was the upper, or northern, section of the Township of Harrison. A prominent citizen and resident of the upper section, General N. M. Halsted, felt it was impossible under these political conditions for his section to obtain proper recognition. He engaged an energetic campaign for an independent township. He succeeded when the NJ Legislature of 1867 on March 14, adopted "an act creating the Township of Kearny". The town was named to honor Major General Philip Kearny, Commander of the New Jersey Forces in the Civil War and the owner of the mansion known as Belle Grove (or Belgrove), locally called "Kearny Castle".

On April 8, 1867, the first election of town officers was held. General N. M. Halsted was elected Chairman. The first official seat of Government was three rooms in the old Lodi Hotel, on the northeast corner of Schuyler and Harrison Avenues.

In the early 1870s, Kearny erected its first Town Hall, on the corner of Kearny and Woodland Avenues, the present site of the Knox Presbyterian Church Parish Hall. This served as a Town Hall, Court House, and Schoolhouse. The Minute Book of the Township states on August 16, 1870, the first step toward establishing Kearny's present public school system was taken. The first schoolhouse was housed in the Town Hall built at Kearny and Woodland Avenues in 1873.

The Highland Hose No. 4 firehouse, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, was built in 1895.

The town's nickname, "Soccer Town, U.S.A." is derived from a soccer tradition that originated in the mid-1870s, when thousands of Scottish and Irish immigrants settled in the town, after two Scottish companies, Clark Thread Company and Nairn Linoleum, opened two local mills and a factory.

When the town's growth demanded larger quarters, the present Kearny Town Hall, built of Indiana limestone, was erected in 1909.

Factory town
The early influx and development of industry in Kearny dates back to 1875 when the Clark Thread Company of Paisley in Scotland extended its activities to the United States by erecting two large mills in Kearny, and adding two others in 1890. These mills brought to Kearny thousands of Scots immigrants. Many of them would play on Kearny's soccer teams in National Association Football League. Many are buried at Arlington Memorial Park in the Kearny Uplands.

In 1876, the Mile End Thread Mills started operating, giving employment to several hundred operators.

In 1883, the Marshall Flax Spinning Company of England erected a large plant in Kearny, known as the Linen Thread Company. Their need for experienced flax spinners brought an influx of workers from other sections of the British Isles. Families of those early textile workers were the nucleus of Kearny's present population.

The Puraline Manufacturing Company, later called the Arlington Company, which became a subsidiary of E. I. DuPont de Nemours Company, had purchased a large tract of land east of the Arlington Station on the Erie Railroad extending well out, north of the railroad embankment, into the meadowland.

In 1887, Sir Michael Nairn established the Nairn Linoleum Company of Kirkcaldy in Scotland, now the Congoleum Nairn Company of Kearny, giving further impetus to local industrial growth. This also led to the growth in the Scottish American population which in the 1960s was about 21,000, accounting for more than half of the town's residents.

In 1902, the Lovell–Dressel Company, manufacturers of marine and railway lamps and fixtures, located in Kearny adjacent to the Erie Railroad.

Other industries which located in Kearny include: Swift & Company, Koppers Company, Theobald Industries, Standard Tool & Manufacturing, Wilkata Box Company, Harris Steel Company and L & R Manufacturing.

Cargo ships were built at Kearny Yards during World War I, and warships during World War II.

Kearny Works
On June 15, 1928, Western Electric broke ground on their second manufacturing facility at 110 Central Avenue to be known as Kearny Works, which would grow to 3,579,000 sqft throughout the years and be the second- largest Western Electric manufacturing plant built before the 1930s, behind the Hawthorne Works at Cicero, Illinois. Between 1925 and 1986, the Kearny Works of Western Electric employed as many as 24,000 in producing a variety of hardware and supplies for the Bell System. It was sold by AT&T in 1984, by which time the plant had 4,000 employees who earned a total of $128 million a year, making it one of the county's largest employers. Henry J. Hill, the mayor of Kearny at the time of the AT&T Kearny Works closure, had himself worked 41 years at the facility as a manufacturing manager and retired three years prior to the closure.

Movie and television filming
In 1982, filming occurred in Kearny at a railroad bridge previously owned by Conrail until closure in 1977. The abandoned bridge, located at the Passaic River is called the NX Bridge and it was used for the motion picture, Annie. Several scenes were done with the bridge in its open position. Locals call this bridge the "Annie Bridge" and has not had freight operations since the closure.

Scenes from the HBO drama series The Sopranos were filmed in Kearny. One of its buildings, used for Satriale's Pork Store, was later razed to prepare for a parking lot. An Irish pub now resides where Satriale's was located.

The film Spinning Gold, which had been delayed during the pandemic for completion, had scenes filmed in Kearny.

The 2022 horror movie, Smile had a scene filmed at Jersey Oil located at 926 Passaic Avenue. The film is attributed as entirely filmed in New Jersey.

Kearny Point has two studios that are part of the film and television industry. Kearny Mayor Al Santos confirmed, "...our vision for Kearny Point as a hub for film and television production. This investment will create employment opportunities and bring increased economic activity to our community."

Theaters
Kearny had a few theaters for film showings starting in the early 20th Century. The few that had opened approximately before World War I were no longer listed among the three theaters of the 1920s and 1930s that opened. Those early movie theaters had been repurposed for other building uses either as apartments or meeting places. The ones that opened during the 1920s and 1930s took a few decades to close. The Lincoln Theater was operating until August 2015. The empty Lincoln Theater was placed for sale after the closure, until September 2022 when it was purchased for $975,000. The new owner realized opening the theater again, without movie business knowledge, would not be the plans for the business and will proceed instead to have apartments approved by the town for the property redevelopment. There are no movie theaters currently operating in the township.

Here was a list of the former theaters:

Geography
According to the United States Census Bureau, the town had a total area of 10.27 square miles (26.61 km2), including 8.84 square miles (22.91 km2) of land and 1.43 square miles (3.70 km2) of water (13.91%).

Unincorporated communities, localities and place names located partially or completely within the town include Arlington, New Jersey, Schuylers Corner and West Arlington.

The town is bordered by East Newark and Harrison in Hudson County, and by Lyndhurst and North Arlington in Bergen County. The Passaic River separates the town from Newark and Belleville, both located in Essex County. The Hackensack River separates it from Secaucus and Jersey City.

The town is varied in topography and roughly divided into three parts: the Kearny Uplands, the Kearny Meadows and South Kearny, where the Hackensack and Passaic rivers meet. Main thoroughfares include the eponymous Kearny Avenue (the local segment of Ridge Road / Frank E. Rodgers Boulevard), Bergen Avenue, Midland Avenue, Schuyler Avenue and Passaic Avenue.

A number of small parks running along the Passaic River are collectively called Riverbank Park. The largest, located on the colloquial "Bunnyland Hill", is a gift from Kearny's veterans. It is named after a small zoo named Bunnyland, which was maintained by the local Kiwanis Club, that occupied part of the present Bunnyland Hill in the 20th century. During Kearny's Fourth of July celebrations (which include a fireworks display), Bunnyland Hill is the primary gathering spot for celebrants and observers. The largest park is West Hudson Park, shared with Harrison, which contains a variety of sports fields, recreational areas, and an artificial pond. The second largest recreational zone is the Kearny Playground at Gunnel Oval.

2010 census
The 2010 United States census counted 40,684 people, 13,462 households, and 9,921 families in the town. The population density was 4,636.5 per square mile (1,790.2/km2). There were 14,180 housing units at an average density of 1,616.0 per square mile (623.9/km2). The racial makeup was 73.57% (29,933) White, 5.37% (2,186) Black or African American, 0.40% (163) Native American, 4.41% (1,793) Asian, 0.08% (32) Pacific Islander, 12.53% (5,099) from other races, and 3.63% (1,478) from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 39.95% (16,253) of the population.

Of the 13,462 households, 33.5% had children under the age of 18; 51.6% were married couples living together; 15.6% had a female householder with no husband present and 26.3% were non-families. Of all households, 21.0% were made up of individuals and 7.7% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.83 and the average family size was 3.28.

20.7% of the population were under the age of 18, 11.0% from 18 to 24, 31.2% from 25 to 44, 26.4% from 45 to 64, and 10.7% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 36.4 years. For every 100 females, the population had 106.0 males. For every 100 females ages 18 and older there were 105.7 males.

The Census Bureau's 2006–2010 American Community Survey showed that (in 2010 inflation-adjusted dollars) median household income was $58,698 (with a margin of error of ±$3,838) and the median family income was $66,272 (±$3,803). Males had a median income of $45,360 (±$2,598) versus $38,668 (±$3,893) for females. The per capita income for the borough was $24,977 (±$1,022). About 7.6% of families and 10.3% of the population were below the poverty line, including 14.2% of those under age 18 and 8.1% of those age 65 or over.

2000 census
As of the 2000 United States census there were 40,513 people, 13,539 households, and 9,802 families residing in the town. The population density was 4,433.2 PD/sqmi. There were 13,872 housing units at an average density of 1,518.0 /sqmi. The racial makeup of the town was 75.75% White, 3.97% African American, 0.37% Native American, 5.50% Asian, 0.07% Pacific Islander, 10.04% from other races, and 4.31% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 27.34% of the population.

There were 13,539 households, out of which 34.6% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 53.8% were married couples living together, 13.2% had a female householder with no husband present, and 27.6% were non-families. 21.8% of all households were made up of individuals, and 8.8% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.81 and the average family size was 3.28.

In the town, the population was spread out, with 21.5% under the age of 18, 10.7% from 18 to 24, 35.7% from 25 to 44, 21.3% from 45 to 64, and 10.9% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 35 years. For every 100 females, there were 106.6 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 107.0 males.

The median income for a household in the town was $47,757, and the median income for a family was $54,596. Males had a median income of $38,672 versus $30,620 for females. The per capita income for the town was $20,886. About 6.1% of families and 8.6% of the population were below the poverty line, including 9.1% of those under age 18 and 10.0% of those age 65 or over.

Economy
In 1982, the Kearny Works plant was assessed for property tax purposes at $23.9 million and represented about 7.3 percent of the towns' total tax base. The real estate taxes for the plant were $1.6 million but a closure was upcoming for 1983. According to Mayor Hill, Western Electric was one of the largest taxpayer's for the town. According to Ronnie Connors, assistant tax assessor, the company appealed with the town December 1982 for tax relief and agreement was reduced assessment to between $17 million and $18 million for 1983. With the closures evident, the officials needed to offset the $1.6 million loss by drawing new industry to Kearny with incentives.

Portions of the town are part of an Urban Enterprise Zone (UEZ), one of 32 zones covering 37 municipalities statewide. Kearny was selected in 1983 as one of the initial group of 10 zones chosen 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 November 1992, the town's Urban Enterprise Zone status expires in November 2023. Since its inception, there has been $27 million in tax revenue that has been invested based on revenue from the Urban Enterprise Zone.

Arts and culture
The Kearny Public Library is one of New Jersey's remaining Carnegie libraries, and houses a museum on its third floor which mounts exhibitions related to the history and culture of the town and has a collection of artifacts related to the town's namesake.

In 2023, the town acquired a former church for $1.5 million, which it intends to convert to a cultural center.

Local government
Kearny is governed under the Town form of New Jersey municipal government. It is one of nine municipalities (of the 564) statewide that use this form of government. The governing body is comprised of the Mayor and Town Council, who are elected on a partisan basis as part of the November general election. The Mayor is elected directly by the voters at-large to a four-year term of office. The Town Council, comprised of eight members, is elected by the voters to four-year terms of office on a staggered basis, with one of the two seats from each of the four wards coming up for election in two consecutive years followed by two years with no elections. The Mayor and Council operate on a legislative basis, with the Mayor having veto power. The day-to-day operations are the responsibility of the Town Administrator whose duties are specified by local ordinance, and who generally carries out the policies adopted by the Mayor and Council.

The mayor of Kearny is Independent Carol Jean Doyle, who was elected to serve an unexpired term of office ending December 31, 2025. Members of the Town Council are Members of the Town Council are Renato da Silva (D, 2025; 3rd Ward, elected to serve an unexpired term), Marytrine De Castro (D, 2025; 1st Ward), Eileen Eckel (D, 2026; 3rd Ward), Gerald J. Ficeto (D, 2025; 4th Ward), Richard P. Konopka (D, 2025; 2nd Ward), Dennis Solano (D, 2026; 2nd Ward, elected to serve an unexpired term), Stathis Theodoropoulos (D, 2026; 4th Ward) and George Zapata (D, 2026; 1st Ward).

During the July 11, 2023, council meeting, Peter Santana (Councilman for the 2nd Ward) was appointed Mayor until a special election was held in November 2023. Al Santos, who had been mayor since January 1, 2000, resigned his role on this same date when the New Jersey Senate's Judiciary Committee confirmed his appointment as a Hudson County Superior Court Judge. In the November 2023 general election, Independent candidate Carol Jean Doyle became the first women to serve th etown as mayow after she defeated Democrat Peter Santana and Republican Sydney Ferreira. In December 2023, Renato da Silva was appointed to fill the 3rd Ward seat expiring in 2025 that became vacant when Doyle took office as mayor.

In February 2019, the Town Council appointed Gerald Ficeto to fill the 2nd Ward seat expiring in December 2021 that had been held by Michael D. Landy until he resigned from office in December 2018. in November 2019, Ficeto was elected to serve the balance of the term of office.

On January 7, 2017, 2nd Ward Councilman Jonathan Giordano died, creating a vacancy on the Town Council. In February 2017, Peter Santana was selected unanimously to fill Giordano's seat that expires in December 2018; Santana served on an interim basis until the November 2017 general election, when voters elected him to serve the balance of the term of office.

In February 2015, the Town Council selected Marytrine De Castro, as chosen by the Democratic municipal committee, to fill the vacant First Ward seat expiring in December 2017 that had been held by Alexa Arce until she resigned the previous month. In the November general election, De Castro was elected to serve the balance of the term.

Fire department
The town is protected by the Kearny Fire Department, which operates out of four fire stations. The current Chief of Department is Steve Dyl. Below is a list of fire station locations and apparatus of the Kearny Fire Department.

Federal, state, and county representation
Kearny is split between the 8th and 9th Congressional Districts and is part of New Jersey's 31st state legislative district.

Prior to the 2010 Census, Kearny had been part of the 9th Congressional District and the NJ's 13th congressional district, a change made by the New Jersey Redistricting Commission that took effect in January 2013, based on the results of the November 2012 general elections. In the redistricting that took effect in 2013, 22,572 (about 55%) Kearny residents were placed in the 8th District, with the remaining 18,112 (about 45%) located in the extreme northwest corner of the town placed in the 9th District.

Politics
As of March 2011, there were a total of 16,348 registered voters in Kearny, of which 7,030 (43.0%) were registered as Democrats, 1,922 (11.8%) were registered as Republicans and 7,390 (45.2%) were registered as Unaffiliated. There were 6 voters registered to other parties.

In the 2012 presidential election, Democrat Barack Obama received 68.9% of the vote (7,579 cast), ahead of Republican Mitt Romney with 29.9% (3,293 votes), and other candidates with 1.2% (129 votes), among the 11,076 ballots cast by the town's 17,601 registered voters (75 ballots were spoiled), for a turnout of 62.9%. In the 2008 presidential election, Democrat Barack Obama received 60.4% of the vote (6,953 cast), ahead of Republican John McCain with 37.9% (4,365 votes) and other candidates with 1.1% (121 votes), among the 11,508 ballots cast by the town's 18,057 registered voters, for a turnout of 63.7%. In the 2004 presidential election, Democrat John Kerry received 57.0% of the vote (6,363 ballots cast), outpolling Republican George W. Bush with 41.7% (4,650 votes) and other candidates with 0.5% (87 votes), among the 11,154 ballots cast by the town's 16,633 registered voters, for a turnout percentage of 67.1.

In the 2013 gubernatorial election, Democrat Barbara Buono received 49.5% of the vote (2,667 cast), ahead of Republican Chris Christie with 48.8% (2,634 votes), and other candidates with 1.7% (92 votes), among the 5,597 ballots cast by the town's 18,001 registered voters (204 ballots were spoiled), for a turnout of 31.1%. In the 2009 gubernatorial election, Democrat Jon Corzine received 52.9% of the vote (3,838 ballots cast), ahead of Republican Chris Christie with 38.5% (2,790 votes), Independent Chris Daggett with 5.4% (390 votes) and other candidates with 1.1% (80 votes), among the 7,249 ballots cast by the town's 16,417 registered voters, yielding a 44.2% turnout.

Public schools
The Kearny School District serves public school students in pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade. As of the 2021–22 school year, the district, comprised of seven schools, had an enrollment of 5,142 students and 455.7 classroom teachers (on an FTE basis), for a student–teacher ratio of 11.3:1. Schools in the district (with 2021–22 enrollment data from the National Center for Education Statistics ) are Franklin Elementary School with 842 students in grades PreK-6, Garfield Elementary School with 439 students in grades PreK-6, Roosevelt Elementary School with 385 students in grades PreK-6, Schuyler Elementary School with 410 students in grades PreK-6, Washington Elementary School with 474 students in grades PreK-6, Lincoln Middle School with 752 students in grades 7-8 and Kearny High School with 1,742 students in grades 9-12.

Charter schools
Kearny also includes Hudson Arts and Science Charter School, a charter school that operates as part of iLearn Schools, based in Elmwood Park. HASCS has two campuses, an elementary and middle school. The elementary school is located at 131 Midland Avenue (formerly Mater Dei Academy) and the middle school is located at 114 Chestnut Street (formerly Mount Carmel Guild High School). HASCS Elementary serves grades K-3 and HASCS Middle serves grades 4-8. The two schools have a combined total of 815 students.

Private schools
Schools in Kearny include:
 * Kearny Christian Academy, a Christian school founded in 1981 by the City of Hope International Church that serves students in kindergarten through twelfth grade.
 * Mt. Carmel Guild School (now the site of Hudson Arts and Science Charter School - Middle)
 * The Little Neighborhood Learning Center
 * Happy Time Preschool & Day Care

In the face of declining enrollment, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Newark closed Mater Dei Academy at the conclusion of the 2011–2012 school year. Mater Dei had been opened three years earlier as the merger of two existing schools, St. Stephen's and Holy Cross (the latter in Harrison), but attendance declined from 250 in its first year to 170 in its final year. Other former Catholic schools in Kearny include: Sacred Heart School and St. Cecilia School.

Roads and highways
, the town had a total of 70.89 mi of roadways, of which 50.75 mi were maintained by the municipality, 7.30 mi by Hudson County, 7.73 mi by the New Jersey Department of Transportation and 5.11 mi by the New Jersey Turnpike Authority.

Several roadways pass through and intersect in the town. The Belleville Turnpike (Route 7) forms the northern border of the town with North Arlington and crosses the Rutgers Street Bridge over the Passaic River into Belleville. Kearny Avenue passes through the town and continues north as Ridge Road, the beginning of Route 17. U.S. Route 1/9 (Pulaski Skyway) and US 1/9 Truck pass through. The Essex Freeway (Interstate 280) passes through the town and ends at Interstate 95 (the New Jersey Turnpike eastern and western spurs) at the tollgate for Exit 15W.

Public transportation
NJ Transit offers bus service to the Port Authority Bus Terminal in Midtown Manhattan and to other New Jersey communities. Bus service to Newark is available on the 1, 30, 40, and 76 routes.

Kearny was formerly served by trains of both the Erie Railroad's Newark Branch (later Erie-Lackawanna and then Conrail's Newark Industrial Branch) and its Greenwood Lake Division (later the Erie-Lackawanna's Greenwood Lake-Boonton Line; and Conrail and New Jersey Transit's Boonton Line) which stopped at the now-abandoned Arlington station. Newark Branch passenger service was terminated in October 1966. But freight service continued until 2005, when the last remaining shipper, Spar-Tech PolyCom, shut down. However freight service on the Newark side is still active. New Jersey Transit discontinued Boonton Line service in 2002 when the Montclair Connection was opened. Through the early 1970s trains also stopped at a second station along this route known as West Arlington. This station was just to the east of the now abandoned WR Draw movable bridge. Prior to April 30, 1967, a station in South Kearny, was served by the Central Railroad of New Jersey's Newark and New York Railroad via the PD Draw over the Passaic River. This station was popular with employees of the giant Western Electric plant, and other industries in the area. In the final years of this service a pair of rush hour trains ran in each direction between South Kearny, and the CNJ's Broad Street Station in downtown Newark, as well as a single rush hour round trip between South Kearny, and Plainfield. This train operated via Elizabethport, and the CNJ main line. Kearny is also the location of the Meadows Maintenance Complex, the primary maintenance facility for NJ Transit rail operations. The closest airport with scheduled passenger service is Newark Liberty International Airport, located 6.5 mi away in Newark and Elizabeth.

Notable people
People who were born in, residents of, or otherwise closely associated with Kearny include:

 * Tomasz Adamek (born 1976), Polish professional heavyweight boxer who is the former WBC Light Heavyweight Champion and the former IBF & IBO & The Ring Cruiserweight Champion
 * Karen Akunowicz (born 1978), award-winning chef, Top Chef contestant
 * Marcello Borges (born 1997), soccer player who currently plays college soccer at the University of Michigan
 * Rachel Breton (born 1990), soccer striker and defender who played for Sky Blue FC and New Jersey Wildcats
 * Davey Brown (1898–1970), U.S. soccer forward who was inducted into the US Soccer Hall of Fame
 * Marques Brownlee (born 1993), YouTube personality who reviews technology
 * John F. Cali (1928–1992), politician who served three terms in the New Jersey General Assembly, representing the 30th Legislative District from 1974 to 1980.
 * Guy W. Calissi (c. 1909–1980), New Jersey Superior Court judge who lived in an orphanage here
 * Gary Michael Cappetta (born 1952), professional wrestling ring announcer, author, voice over artist, screenwriter and stage performer
 * Ownie Carroll (1902–1975), Major League Baseball pitcher who played nine seasons in the major, from 1925 to 1934
 * Jennifer Dore (born 1971), rower who competed in women's quadruple sculls at the 2000 Summer Olympics
 * George Dunlap (1908–2003), golfer best known for winning the United States Amateur Championship in 1933
 * James Ford (born 1889), soccer outside right who earned one cap with the U.S. national team in 1916.
 * Santiago Formoso (born 1953), soccer defender who played five seasons in the North American Soccer League.
 * James Gallagher (1909–1992), soccer player who earned two caps with the United States national soccer team
 * Franco Gamero (born 1990), international footballer who has played for the Puerto Rico national football team.
 * Ted Gillen (born 1968), former professional soccer player
 * Albert Gonzalez (born 1981), government informant and computer criminal
 * Ed Halicki (born 1950), former professional baseball pitcher with a no-hitter to his credit, pitched on August 24, 1975, against the New York Mets
 * John Harkes (born 1967), professional soccer player
 * Al Hartley (1921–2003), comic book writer-artist known for his work on Archie Comics
 * Fred A. Hartley Jr. (1902–1969), New Jersey Congressman best known for being the House of Representatives sponsor of the Taft-Hartley Act
 * Herbie Haymer (1916–1949), jazz saxophonist
 * John Hemingsley, soccer center forward who played the first two U.S. national team games in 1916.
 * Frank Iero (born 1981), rhythm guitarist and backup vocalist for My Chemical Romance
 * James F. Kelley (1902–1996), President of Seton Hall College (since renamed as Seton Hall University) from 1936 to 1949
 * Jeffrey Klepacki (born 1968), three-time US Olympian in rowing and three-time world champion
 * Buzz Kulik (1922–1999), film director and producer
 * Joe Kyrillos (born 1960), politician who served in the New Jersey Senate from 1992 to 2018, where he represents the 13th Legislative District
 * Joan Lippincott (born 1935), concert organist
 * Monroe Jay Lustbader (1931–1996), politician who served in the New Jersey General Assembly from 1992 until his death, where he represented the 21st Legislative District
 * Kevin Maguire (born 1960), comic book artist
 * Paul McCurrie (1929–2020), lawyer and politician who served in the New Jersey General Assembly
 * Tony Meola (born 1969), professional soccer player
 * Dots Miller (1886–1923), Major League Baseball player from 1909 to 1921
 * Michael Moran (born 1962), author / analyst of international affairs and digital documentarian
 * Tony Mottola (1918–2004), jazz guitarist
 * Jim Murphy (1947–2022), author of more than nonfiction and fiction books for children, young adults, and general audiences, including more than 30 about American history
 * Shamus O'Brien (1907–1981), soccer player inducted in 1990 into the National Soccer Hall of Fame
 * Brian O'Hara (born 1979), law enforcement official who is serving as the 54th Chief of the Minneapolis Police Department
 * Hugh O'Neill (born 1954), soccer player who played in the NASL, ASL, and MISL
 * Greg Pason (born 1966), National Secretary of the Socialist Party USA
 * George Paxton (c. 1914–1989), big band jazz leader, saxophonist, composer and producer
 * Matt Pelissier (born 1979), drummer for My Chemical Romance
 * Bill Raftery (born 1943), college basketball analyst and former college basketball player for La Salle University
 * Tab Ramos (born 1966), retired soccer midfielder
 * James H. Rupp (1918–1998), Illinois state senator, Mayor of Monmouth, Illinois, and businessman
 * Harold Hill Smith (1910–1994), geneticist who first fused a human cell and a plant cell
 * Bob Stanley (born 1954), professional baseball relief pitcher who played for the Boston Red Sox
 * Archie Stark (1897–1985), soccer pioneer in the United States and member of the National Soccer Hall of Fame
 * Ray Toro (born 1977), My Chemical Romance lead guitarist
 * John Patrick Washington (1908–1943), Roman Catholic priest; one of the Four Chaplains, who gave their lives to save other soldiers during the sinking of the troop transport Dorchester during World War II
 * Alex Webster (1931–2012), fullback and halfback in the NFL for the New York Giants, who was later head coach of the Giants
 * Dick Weisgerber (1915–1984), professional football player for the Green Bay Packers
 * Kenneth G. Wiman (1930–2021), U.S. Coast Guard Rear Admiral

title: Kearny, New Jersey