to be transcribed
by Loula D. Lasker
Volume LX
No. 5
Those Private Palisades
By LOULA D. LASKER
V^ ^XN the year of our Lord, 1932, the largest
suspension bridge in the world with a span
twice as long as its nearest rival will be
open for traffic. Over 8,000,000 vehicles, it
^^^^L^^ is estimated, will cross this bridge from
‘”^ ^^ upper Manhattan to New Jersey or back,
during its first year of traffic. Some 20,000,000 people will
go over it that year. By the middle of the century, com-
petent authorities predict these figures will be doubled. The
bridge builders are preparing for them, building wide and
high as well as long.
An engineering feat this, that will stand as an everlasting
monument to the farsighted vision of the Port of New York
Authority, and to the modern enterprise of the states of
New York and New Jersey which in 1926 authorized a
bond issue of sixty million dollars to make the bridge a
reality. A gigantic venture that could be projected only in
this twentieth century age of man-made wonders ! An un-
dertaking that will, after three hundred years, bring the
Jersey hinterland within easy reach of the urban center in
short, a means by which overcrowded Manhattan can spread
out into one of the few reaches of contiguous territory which
today still hold out possibilities for home development.
The work is already well under way at the bridge heads,
land has been condemned,
foundations laid, the con-
tracts for the great steel
cables let, and 1932 or
sooner will see the comple-
tion of the structure. Its
opening will be a day of
rejoicing. We will all be
there !
The governors of the two
great states, countless func-
tionaries, people from the
highest and lowest walks of
life are on hand. Sirens and
whistles sound from flotillas
of harbor boats; argosies of
aircraft course overhead.
Andrew Carnegie once said that no man was
rich enough or was it worthy enough? to
own a mountain. There are some things that
belong to God or at most to all the children
of men. Should the Palisades be less inviolate?
Were an earthquake to sink them into the sea,
it would be reckoned a world catastrophe. Yet
the great New York and New Jersey commu-
nities at the port of the Hudson are letting
them be ravaged irremediably at the very time
that our engineering genius arches the river
eleven miles from its mouth. More, the bridge
itself has brought this jeopardy.
265
Speakers of the day point out among other things what the
cooperation of the citizenry of two great states can accom-
plish. . . . The ribbon is cut and the first automobile crosses
the lofty roadway which at 179 Street will connect Wash-
ington Heights with Fort Lee. Cheering spectators get the
thrill that comes to those who witness an epoch-making
spectacle.
But what will be the back-drop to this civic achievement?
What do the crowds and the bridge builders see as they
look past the span to the Palisades of the Hudson opposite?
They envisage a gap-toothed horizon of skyscrapers, tall and
small, some ten, some twenty stories high, some twice that ;
skysigns, billboards, water tanks, Coney Island shows. The
Palisades are no more than the cellar walls of modern
Towers of Babel silhouetted against the sky. From the
New York side of the river, the landscape has been turned
into a serrated skyline of disillusionment; and from the
New Jersey side, only the fortunate tenants of the new
apartment houses share the outlook on the Hudson. Need-
lessly, as result of a marvelous accomplishment, man has
dishevelled for all time a triumph of nature which he could
no more duplicate than he could replace Gibraltar or
Niagara.
This is not an ugly whimsy, nor a figment of imagination.
True, today it is only a
prediction but long before
1932 it will have assumed
misbegotten shape unless
steps are taken, and taken
immediately, to prevent the
fulfillment of that predic-
tion. Already real-estate
speculators have bought
large parcels of land along
the crest of the Palisades
and have announced their
intention of building these
skyscrapers. A ninety-story
apartment house atop the
cliff is the boast of one
operator who is said to have
266
THOSE PRIVATE PALISADES
of Cliffside opposite 120 Street, New York City,
residential property which sold fifteen years ago for
three hundred dollars a lot now sells at twelve
thousand dollars.
Less spectacular but no less conclusive in their evi-
dence, are figures carried in a recent report of the
Preliminary Bergen County Park Commission. Ac-
cording to this study, definite pieces of business prop-
erty in the neighborhood of the bridge approaches,
valued at one hundred and fifty dollars per front
foot before 1925, cost one thousand dollars in 1926,
while other specific plots rose from three hundred
dollars to two thousand dollars during that period.
Venturing to predict what it terms “normal increase”
in value of Bergen County land, the commission
offers its conclusions in the diagram below.
Based on the net valuation for which county,
state and school taxes are apportioned, the valua-
tions graphed probably represent not more than 50
per cent of the actual property value of Bergen
County. From $150,000,000 in 1915, the valua-
tion of its land had risen to nearly $400,000,000 in
1927 and by 1930, according to this estimate,
should reach $600,000,000.
All this territory is within a few miles of the new
bridge and includes Fort Lee itself, the municipality
in which the approach is actually located. In 1920 it
had 894 inhabitants per square mile; in 1924, 1,478.
The park commission presents this table of popu-
lation growth and forecast for Bergen County:
Estimated
Predicted
Year
1910
1915
1920
1927
1950
PIERCING THE PALISADES
An architect’s drawing of the new Hudson River bridge
put two millions into land thereabouts. Auction sales are
being held as this issue of Survey Graphic goes to press,
splitting up one of the few large tracts of wooded crest,
once the possession of the public. Folders and newspaper
advertisements ring the changes as of a Long Island get-
rich-quick addition. Only these offerings have to do with
much more than real estate. They would turn into build-
ing lots at speculators’ profits the one transcendent and ir-
replaceable coign of natural beauty within a hundred miles
of the greatest city in the new world.
AS presage to these developments, land values in Bergen
j[~_ County have risen inordinately the past two years. The
opening of the Holland Tunnels has affected all this part
of New Jersey. Speculation that would rival tales of
Florida has sprung up since then and since plans for the
Hudson River Bridge were formulated. Advantage is nat-
urally being taken of the land boom that will come with
its completion four years hence.
According to reliable authorities, acreage in the immedi-
ate neighborhood of the bridge has increased tenfold and
more in value. Thirty thousand to forty-five thousand dol-
lars per acre has been paid recently for land in that
vicinity; several miles to the north above the cliffs in
Alpine ten thousand dollars an acre is today the average
price of real estate. A few miles to the south, in the borough
Minimum
Average
Maximum
Ergo the implications are plain,
taken by the forelock to obtain a strip
of land above the crest of the Palisades <
for park and parkway purposes, the
financial cost will become prohibitive. ^
A year ago the Citizens Union of
the City of New York sent out an ap-
peal which stated that “excepting for
a few short stretches, the
land at the top of the cliffs
remains in private hands,
to the very brink overlook-
ing the river. … As soon
as building starts it will be
too late.” About
half of the prop-
erty in question
comprises parts
of a few very
valuable private
estates. The
other half large-
ly to the south
of these estates,
is in small par-
cels of 5, 15,
25 and 50 acres
Population
138,002
178,596
210,703
384,583
500,000
600,000
680,000
Unless time is
ill?
LAND VALUES ZOON!
Bergen County valuations (1915-30) as gathered by
McClave and McClave for the Bergen County Park
Commission
THOSE PRIVATE PALISADES
267
and, up to within three years ago when speculation
started, was in the hands of probably three hundred
separate owners. Today much of this has been acquired by
speculative builders. The most vigorous and imaginative
among them is Dr. Charles V. Paterno, well-known for his
building projects in Manhattan among others the luxurious
twelve-story apartment house, known as Two-Seventy Park
Avenue, covering an entire block and built around a garden
rectangle. Dr. Paterno’s own home, appropriately called
The Castles from which may be had a magnificent view
of the Palisades opposite is one of the show places on
Riverside Drive. He predicts that in the not too distant
future, one million people will be housed across the river in
the Palisades region thanks to the enterprising builders
vho are planning vast structures thereabouts. He himself
proposes to cap them with a building a thousand feet high,
its tower rising sixteen hundred feet above the water line
“twice as high,” he points out, “as the Woolworth Building
and a good deal higher than the Eiffel Tower.”
Though Dr. Paterno agrees that buildings should not be
put right at the water’s edge, he thinks that the creation of
a large park area on the ridge would be wasteful and
extravagant. “If a Rockefeller or a group of Rockefellers
bought up all this land and turned it over for park pur-
poses,” he said, “the public would simply be out of luck.
Land should be used so as to give the greatest good to the
greatest number for the greatest expanse of time. How can
you accomplish this better than by putting up apartments
where tenants can actually live all hours of the day -and not
just have a passing glimpse of the river or the Palisades ?”
It is only due to a fortunate set of circumstances that
builders who have seen the commercial value of this elevated
water front have not already taken steps which would
irrevocably mar the landscape. The property in question lies
in the outlying borders of several small municipalities. The
land is a thin surfacing over solid rock, costly to open up.
These municipalities at present have water mains and
sewage systems of a size commensurate only with their
meager needs pipings entirely inadequate to care for the
huge demands on them that would be created if these am-
bitious building projects went through. And so, for the
time being, these enterprises have been stalled, though as
one New Jersey realtor operating in the locality puts it
(who himself would save the edge of the ridge for park
purposes) : “The cliff edge will undoubtedly be given over
to giant apartment structures as soon as sewers and other
utilities are constructed in this primeval region to accom-
modate them.”
ONE operator is known to be doing his utmost to over-
come the delay. Architect’s plans in hand, some time
ago this man turned up at the courthouse of one of these
municipalities and demanded a permit from the local
authorities. He proposed to start work at once, he said, on
a group of structures to house twenty-five thousand people.
He was told of the lack of adequate water supply and
sewage disposal for such a large new community. “An out-
rage,” he thundered. “This land has cost me a lot of money.
Where can I find the boss of this place?” He did not get
his building permit. No boss was forthcoming; but there
is no indication that this operator regards his set-back as final.
It has been augured that he may drop his own sewers through
to the face of the cliff and treat passing steamers to the
sight of a row of sanitary waterfalls! But more seriously
speaking, no one can tell when the small municipalities
concerned will feel it is to their self-interest to combine (as
there is a movement on foot at the present time to do) and
build the necessary systems. That the civic forces of the
metropolitan area have an eleventh-hour chance, a final
breathing spell to gather their strength and do something
about it, is not due to their alertness but to these homely
difficulties faced by the most primitive town. It is the last
call. In the words of George D. Pratt, former Conserva-
tion Commissioner of the State of New York, “Will the
community ever wake up?”
Cass Gilbert, architect
The bridge portal seen from the New Jersey approach
Drawn by John T. Cronin
268
THOSE PRIVATE PALISADES
Which?
MORE than twelve miles long, three hundred
to five hundred feet to its summits, an
eighth of a mile from cliff-top to river-edge, the
Palisade region reaches back, in places, along
waterfalls and brooks, into deep woods. In all its
forest cover, few finer trees are found than those
that cling to the stiff slope between precipice and
beach. Woods and bush are missing only where
gigantic boulders pile as steep as rock will lie, or
loose small stones slip into “screes.”
All the way, save for an upper detour now and
then, a broad path follows close to the water, while
along the middle part a drive-way winds beneath
the Great Wall
The mountain wilderness and grandeur of the
Palisades will not be apprehended by those who
only see them from a train window a mile away
on the opposite shore or from the deck of a river
steamer that follows the eastern bank. To them
the top appears monotonously level, the wandering
fluted front no more than flat wall, and the tree-
screen formless as spinach. Actually, along this
narrow strip, where most of the mileage is on edge,
there is surprising variety with time and a map
to seek it. Spring and its decorative dogwoods,
autumn and its flaming maples, are little more
alluring than the cool months when the dropped
leaf-curtain reveals all vistas and keen air drives
leg-pistons uphill with none of the wet penalty of
August; when the reclining rock giant is quicker
to hunt out, the new ascent easier to espy, and hot
food and drink are never so comforting.
By Robert Latou Dickinson
From Palisades Interstate Park, a pamphlet issued by
The American Qeograp/iical Society of New York
In all this, history is but repeating itself. In fact, because
of the spirited fight put up and won a quarter century ago
for the face of the cliffs, most Americans have taken it for
granted that the Palisades are safe for all times. But perhaps
a glance back may give us hope that today’s problem will
yet be solved, as was that of a previous decade when their
destruction was first threatened and the Palisades Interstate
Park Commission came into being.
That chapter in the preservation of the Palisades was
written back in 1900, as a result of a very different sort of
invasion than that which threatens them today. Quarry-
men great and small were finding “pay dirt” in the
CAN you see five years ahead? Use your
brains and think in terms of 1932 instead of
- At the completion of the greatest bridge in
the World.
“THE HUDSON RIVER BRIDGE”
Can you see a solid row of high class apartment
houses all along the Palisades, overlooking the
mighty Hudson River and the .great City of New
York.
Atop the Palisades, often referred to as the
“Balcony of the World,” its eastern boundary com-
manding from a height of from four to five-hundred
feet, a magnificient view of New York City, West-
chester and the distant Long Island Sound.
The very section where Dr. Chas. V. PaterriO,
one of the shrewdest real estate buyers and the fore-
most apartment house builder, bought millions of
dollars worth of land and will erect the finest apart-
ments almost immediately. “Does that mean any-
thing to you?”
WHY YOU SHOULD BUY REAL ESTATE
When you buy stocks, bonds and other so-called
securities you only buy paper of lien on real estate.
When you buy Real Estate, you buy the Real
thing, something that cannot be taken away from
you and thai, if chosen with care and intelligence, will
make you a rich man.
Remember Real Estate is Real
property and has Real value.
From a real estate folder, typical of many, advertis-
ing the sales possibilities of Palisades real estate
cliffs of the Palisades. The cliffs were private property.
The owners were the sole arbiters of their fate. Blasting
resounded morning and night. Giant machines gnawed at
the mammoth rock formations. Nature had worked for
centuries; man was destroying in a day. The great wall of
traprock would in a generation become a cadaverous wreck.
The cry arose save the Palisades! Public opinion was
focussed by a group of citizens. An answer was found. By
joint action of the states of New York and New Jersey, an
interstate Palisades Park Commission was formed, “to
provide for the selection, location, appropriation and
management of certain lands along the Palisades of the
THOSE PRIVATE PALISADES
269
Drawing by J. P. G.
THE IMPENDING LANDSCAPE OF 1932 AND AFTER
“A gap-toothed horizon of skyscrapers, billboards, water tanks and Coney Island shows”
Hudson River for an interstate park, and thereby to pre- Though it is true as the extension of the Interstate Park
serve the scenery of the Palisades.” The Palisades were in various places above the cliffs would testify the law does
saved temporarily.
not prevent the commission from acquiring land above “the
The commission set out at once, bringing under its juris- top of the steep edge of the cliff” by purchase or gift, it
diction the cliffs extending from Fort Lee, in Bergen cannot do so unless the owners are willing to sell, as its
County, New
Jersey, to a
little beyond
the New
York state
line. The
right of emi-
nent domain
was e x e r-
cised.the face
of the cliffs
taken over.
Under the
leadership of
the late
George W.
Perkins,
funds were
raised from
the public treasury and private sources. The land was
purchased from its owners, and the Palisades Interstate
Park created. In addition to preserving the Palisades from
the water line to the ridge in all their beauty, the commission
has created many types of recreational facilities along the
cliffs and shore and in its mountain camps facilities which
bring joy to over five million visitors annually. Its work
is one of the magnificent accomplishments of state (or
rather interstate) administration. But that is another
story.
Today’s emergency cannot be met by leaving it to the
interstate commission. Large-scale community action is
necessary. Much money must be raised or voted. State
legislation must be passed. The powers delegated to the
commission thirty years ago are not sufficient to solve the
present problem. By the acts creating it, the commission
was empowered (in addition to taking over a few specific
parcels of land above the cliffs) to select and locate only
“such lands lying between the top of the steep edge of the
How one real-estate operator appreciates what the bridge will bring
right of condemnation may be exercised only below. In
short, provision was originally made simply to rescue the
Palisade cliffs from the quarrymen. The ravishes of a
future generation from another quarter could scarcely have
been predicted thirty years ago. Regional planning was
then barely conceived, and the _^^^^^^^^^^
river still stood as the barrier
to urban expansion.
But, ask the commission’s
critics, with all due credit to
the past performance of this
body, has it been derelict in not
bringing the present situation
forcefully to the attention of
the public, and taking the lead
this new crisis which has
in
been brought to a head by the
Hudson Bridge? Let the com-
mission justify its own position.
FINAL
PATERNO AUCTIONS
<-> ENGLEWOOD “
Satarday, MAY 5th
WILUAMKENNELLY, R.J E.UI, *&
Palisades” (the ridge) “and exterior bulkhead line estab- The job it has on its hands, it Distributed to every passenger on
lished by law upon the Hudson River” (the shore line), claims, taxes all the strength the Ft. Lee ferries early in May
270
THOSE PRIVATE PALISADES
The Regional Plan of Neu; York offers a practical solution which can be laid hold of by civic bodies.
and influence it can muster. All its available resources and
energy have been necessary to raise sufficient funds to make
its current accounts balance and to carry the definite responsi-
bilities it was created to meet. It must be remembered that
in addition to the areas in New Jersey, discussed in this
article, the Palisades Interstate Park Commission has under
its jurisdiction other parks in New York State. The entire
park now consists of about 1,000 acres of land in New
Jersey, comprising the whole shore front of the Palisades
between the high-water mark of the Hudson River and the
top of the cliffs along the west bank of the Hudson River
from Fort Lee to the New York state line, and including
four or five parcels of land above the cliffs; 550 acres of
land at Blauvelt, New York; 780 acres in the Hook
Mountain-Rockland sections; 36,000 acres at Bear
Mountain and Harriman State Park; and 800 acres in the
Storm King sections. Forty per cent of the moneys expended
have been raised from private sources. Much of this has
been contributed by individual commissioners themselves.
Obviously the remainder was raised largely through their
combined efforts. And yet, in spite of all the interest and
energy it has exercised, the commission asserts it has
had great difficulty in maintaining the park within the state
appropriations and other available moneys.
But, continue its critics, not only has the commission
done nothing to prevent this threatened inroad on the
Palisades, but it has actually sold a tract of land which it
held atop the cliffs. True, says the commission, we did.
But, alas, this was done in order to meet financial obli-
gations that could not be ignored. Our position has been
often a desperate one.
And further its inaction in taking any leadership in the
matter, the commission claims, was not the part of inertia
but rather of caution. The interstate park at the foot of
the Palisades is not
a popular institution
in many quarters of
New Jersey. The
commission’s posi-
tion is a delicate
one, and, says Fred-
erick C. Sutro, the
chairman, it “must
avoid suspicion that
it is grasping for
further power.” The
commissioners indi-
vidually and col-
lectively assert that When the
(despite their apparent indifference) they are outraged at
the possible desecration of the Palisades. They feel deeply
the inroads of present-day exploiters and are anxious and
ready to cooperate to the utmost to create a parkway above
the cliffs. But, according to their chairman, chances for a
successful campaign are greater if it be initiated by a group
of interested individuals none of whom, he promises, will
put forth more strenuous efforts than himself. The obstacles
are many, but by all working together can be overcome.
A4D so Mr. Sutro introduces us to the practical aspects of
the matter. Complicated as they are, are they insuper-
able? He thinks not if they are squarely faced. And what
do these difficulties involve? In the main, they are three-
fold, and might roughly be described as first, the unfriendly
attitude of a portion of the New Jersey public, and especially
opposition on the part of some of the residents of the New
Jersey communities situated directly above the Palisades,
to the extension past or present of the Palisades Park
to include any land above the crest of the Palisades ; second,
New York’s lethargy toward the whole matter; and third,
the financial outlay involved.
Enter New Jersey first. During recent years there have
been created a number of park commissions in various
sections of New Jersey, the members of which fully appre-
ciate the importance of park areas. Many of them together
with individual citizens and groups, are alive to the gravity
of the present situation on the bank of the Hudson. Yet
the fact remains that public sentiment throughout the state
is by no means as yet crystallized in favor of extending the
boundaries of the Palisades Park. And in the last analysis,
it is the general public which must decide. Much edu-
cation will be needed before the enactment of necessary
legislation by the state of New Jersey can be anticipated.
Meanwhile, as is so
often the case, the
antis are more ar-
ticulate than the
pros.
What are the ob-
jections held in
New Jersey? First,
there are those New
Jerseyites who have
never completely
reconciled them-
selves to the Pali-
sades Interstate Park
crest is gone as it stands today.
Drawing by R. I,. Dickinson
THOSE PRIVATE PALISADES
271
Present sections of the Palisades Interstate Park shown in solid black. Suggested additions shown in stipple
Twelve miles of valuable shore front, they complain, are
tied up in perpetuity, and they cling to great dreams of
what might have been developed in the way of harbor
facilities if that territory had been left free for such
purposes.
Second, there are those New Jerseyites who, though having
no quarrel with the past, are unwilling to allocate any more
land for park purposes or to exercise the state’s right of
eminent domain. These opponents feel they should not be
called upon to make further sacrifices of land that might be
commercially developed. They claim the benefits to be
derived from such action would be negligible to the state
in comparison with the loss in income to be derived from
such taxable property. Their objection is fiscal and they can
be won over only if they are brought to realize that similar
undertakings elsewhere have had exactly the opposite result.
But more of this later.
There are other Jerseyites, nearby ones, who object to the
use of the Palisades by the city dwellers from across the
river and say they are nuisances. But obviously if the park
area were adequate these holiday makers would more likely
stay within its bounds. And there are the Jerseyites who
live in counties remote from Bergen County, who object to
such a sum of money being put into improvements planned
for a single locality.
Finally, there are those New Jerseyites who cannily point
out that to preserve the grandeur of the Palisades will cost
a lot of money. The Palisades are really New York’s
concern, not ours, say they. It is true these bluffs are
situated in New Jersey but they lie in the state’s backyard.
Though New Jerseyites appreciate their beauty, they rarely
see it. It is from Riverside Drive in New York that this
masterpiece of natural beauty is to be gloried in. If New
Yorkers think their view worth saving, let them pay for it.
Where then does New York stand? Does it recognize
its share in the responsibility ? The creation of the Palisades
Interstate Park
Commission in
1900, would indi-
cate that the com-
monwealth of New
York does appre-
ciate that the pres-
ervation of land out-
side its bounds in
the state of New
Jersey may be a
cooperative problem
for the two states to
Evening along the Palisades
face jointly. That in the past New Yorkers have been
willing to recognize this to the fullest extent, is borne out
by the fact that of the moneys expended in the New Jersey
section of the park 49.8 per cent was contributed by New
York either from public or private sources. Nonetheless,
although New York has in the past thus recognized
geographic boundaries as artificial dividing lines when it
comes to facing a great civic need of the urban district,
not only the state but the city have been utterly lethargic in
the face of the present emergency. That, in some ways,
has been a more difficult tendency to combat than the
prevalence of active hostility in certain quarters in New
Jersey. Sporadically, here and there, an individual organi-
zation has given a passing glance to the need for creating
a parkway to prevent unsightly structures from springing
up above the Hudson cliffs. ‘But the problem has been
regarded as difficult, so no real attempt has been made to
solve it, and only scattered efforts have been made to initiate
an organized movement against it. The prospect has been
generally brushed aside with the passing remark, it is too
late to accomplish anything.
A*J exception is Leopold O. Rothschild, an attorney and a
moving spirit in the Citizens’ Union. Largely as a result
of his efforts, that body a year ago issued the report quoted ;
but it has not moved further in the matter. In the course
of his efforts, Mr. Rothschild wrote the editor of a powerful
metropolitan newspaper suggesting that it take an active
stand. The reply illustrates a stereotyped point of view:
If this had been undertaken years ago, at the time that the
interstate park was being planned, it might have been feasible.
City growth and the rise of suburban values make the cost
now prohibitive. … In view of the cost of the project you
suggest . . . our paper does not see its way clear to make an
issue of the matter.
The attitude of New York officialdom has been very
similar. To quote
from a letter of a
high state official:
What you have in
mind is very desir-
able but apparently
impractical on ac-
count of the cost. . . .
I am sure you must
be aware of the fact
that those of us who
are interested in the
state park program
(Continued on
pafft 307)
Drawing by R. I,. Dickinson