(erielack) Hoboken Transportation Center, Diamond Vol. 25, No 2 Article

[Curtis Brookshire <curtis.brookshire_@_verizon.net>]

The latest edition of The Diamond contains an article by Jon Franz  
about the Public Service trolley terminal in Hoboken that adjoined  
Lackawanna Terminal from 1909 until 1949.  There's a great photo  
accompanying the article.  Since it's in the Diamond, I would like to  
expand on this slightly off topic topic.  Jon's article describes the  
PS terminal as having the waiting room upstairs and the platforms  
below and a looping walkway above with a bridge crossing Hudson  
Place.  The tracks and platforms on ground level pre-dated this  
terminal and as of my last visit to Hoboken there were still tracks  
imbedded in the street including part of the ground level turning  
loop.  This terminal was a double deck affair with the upper level  
receiving traffic off the Hoboken Elevated that climbed the Palisades  
on a spectacular viaduct.  Part of that pedestrian bridge was also the  
turning loop for upper level trolleys that extended over Hudson Place  
directly above the ground level loop.  The upper level had one arrival  
platform and three outbound tracks/platforms.  The YMCA building was  
built against the east wall of the trolley terminal, which accounts  
for the blank look of the west wall of this portion of the building  
today.  Trolleys on street level were gone by 1938, replaced with  
Public Service's unique All-Service Vehicles and by busses.  This is  
the location of the NJT bus station that exists now.  Trolleys on the  
upper level and on the elevated ran until August 10, 1949 when the  
Hudson Division ended streetcar operations.  I wish I could have seen  
the terminal in its prime where you had: 1. trains, both steam and  
electric; 2. ferries to New York; 3. elevated and street level  
trolleys; 4. surface busses; 5. the Hudson Tubes below.  Even now we  
have most of these modes of transport, although in different  
incarnations and in slightly different locations (light rail, ferries)  
than in the steam days.  The Morning Sun book on New Jersey Trolleys  
has color photos of the elevated and the cars that ran into Hoboken.   
There was a book on Public Service published in the 1990s that had the  
track diagram for the PS Hoboken Terminal.  Thanks once again for the  
article and photo.

Curtis Brookshire
Manassas, VA

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