Items

• The Weehawken New Jersey Elevators. The largest in the world.

  Series of colored architectural renderings from Harper's Weekly, Volume 35, No. 1820, drawn by Hughson Hawley, artist and illustrator (1850-1936), showing various details of the elevator, elevator cars and trestle leading across to the top of the Palisades at Liberty Place.
• Elevators and Viaduct at Weehawken NJ

  An advertisement from the Passaic Steel Company showing a photograph of the Weehawken Passenger Elevators and Viaduct, listing the length and height of the structure. The gigantic elevator was designed by by civil engineer Thomas E. Brown Jr. based on specifications by Edward A. Trapp, engineer of the North Hudson Railway Company. Completed in 1891, the complex opened in 1892, providing easy transportation for New Yorkers wishing to attend the Eldorado Amusement Park or to go by rail to the Guttenberg Racetrack.
• The Weehawken Elevators and Viaduct

  Technical article from the Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers Volume 27, Issue 2 (1892) describing the design and construction of the massive elevator which brought passengers up from the waterfront to the top of the Palisades and thence on to the Eldorado pleasure garden. Retrieved from the Internet Archive
• Video - The Weehawken Passenger Elevator

  A brief video describing the amazing huge passenger elevator which connected the Weehawken waterfront and ferries to upper Weehawken, the Eldorado amusement park, and the North Hudson Railway Company. Unfortunately, this video repeats the myth that Gustave Eiffel (he of Tower fame) designed the elevator. The elevator was actually designed by civil engineer Thomas E Brown Jr. based on specifications by Edward A. Trapp, engineer of the North Hudson Railroad Company. (Thanks to Desiree Palma Sosa for sending in the link)
• Eldorado - Front view of the Palisades from the Elevators

  Undated black and white photograph showing a view of the Eldorado theater and amusement complex as seen from the top of the elevators which carried people from the ferry slips to the top of the Palisades. From the collection of the Weehawken Historical Commission.
• The Trestle Work Leading to the Elevators

  Undated black and white photo (c. 1892-1897) from the collection of the Weehawken Historical Commission showing the great steam elevator which lifted ferry passengers from the foot of the Palisades to a 900 foot railroad trestle where they could board trains for the Eldorado or the Guttenberg Race Track.
• The Largest Passenger Elevators in the World

  Article from The Manufacturer and Builder, November 1891. The Largest Passenger Elevators in the World. The largest elevators, for carrying passengers, in the world, have just been completed on the banks of the Hudson, near Weehawken. The high table- land in New Jersey, opposite New York city, amid between the Hudson River and the Hackensack, has, up to to this time, not been used as generally for purposes of pleasure and residence as it should have been. This elevated plain, known as the Palisades, is at its beginning some one hundred and fifty feet above high tide, and is over a mile wide at the same point. It stretches north for many miles up the Hudson River, and naturally rises in elevatlon as it proceeds. This high land has been accessible only by steep grades for wagon roads, and by means of stairways which climbed laboriously up the steep cliff. The Hudson County Railway Company, which operates the elevated road at Hoboken, and controls many of the street-car lines in that neighborhood, has of late years been extending these lines and increasing the facilities for getting on top of the Palisades, and from one point of this high plateau to another. The most recent addition to the plant of this company has been the building of huge elevators at Weehawken, where the ferryboats from Forty-second and Jay streets, New York city, discharge their passengers, and where, also, the West Shore Railway starts north and west to Albany and Buffalo. These elevators are the largest ever constructed for passengers, and in planning them the engineers have adopted new devices to secure their safety against accidents. From the elevators, which rise just from the water's edge, there is an immense viaduct, or elevated railroad, which runs some eight hundred feet back to the hill, where connections will be made with the various steam and horse cars which will run in one direction and another. Harper's Weekly.
• Colossus of Weehawken - Railroad Magazine - August 1951

  Article from the August 1951 issue of Railroad magazine (page 94) describing the giant passenger/freight elevator that used to grace the waterfront. Unfortunately, this article repeats the myth that Gustave Eiffel (he of Tower fame) designed the elevator. The elevator was actually designed by civil engineer Thomas E Brown Jr. based on specifications by Edward A. Trapp, engineer of the North Hudson Railroad Company.
• Steam Elevator at Weehawken

  Black and white photograph(1895) of the great elevator from the book, The Hackensack Water Company 1869 - 1969 by Adrian Leiby and Nancy Wichman. The caption reads: Steam elevator at Weehawken which lowered passenger-laden trolleys and other vehicles to 42nd Street Ferry at foot of Palisades, c 1895. In fact, the elevator lowered and raised passengers only, on large elevator cars, not trolleys. At the top, passengers transferred to trains which took them to Eldorado or on to the Guttenberg Racetrack. Published in 1969 by the Bergen County Historical Society.
• Gigantic Passenger Elevator of the North Hudson County Railway

  Article and engravings from Scientific American - October 31 1891 describing and showing the giant elevator that brought ferry loads of passengers to the railway at the top of the Palisades. Includes a drawing of the Eldorado!