February 2000

Own the (Public) Waterfront

Shipyard condominiums at Hoboken's north waterfront

The advertisements by Joseph Barry of Applied Companies exclaiming "Own the Waterfront" in the New York Times and Hoboken Reporter may sound appealing to potential buyers of the Shipyard's luxury condominiums, but they are misleading. The water's edge at this project and at other Hudson River waterfront projects is public land. Most of the land along the Hudson River was once flowed by the tides but was later filled by the numerous maritime industries that once thrived along this coast. The Hudson River and the filled water’s edge are called "public trust lands." Public trust lands belong to the people and are held in trust by the state. In exchange for permission from the state to build on these lands, the developer agrees to construct and maintain a portion of the Hudson River Waterfront Walkway, a public walk being built along the river from the Bayonne to the George Washington Bridge. Barry, however, instead of building the public walkway at his site, has succeeded in getting the Hudson County Improvement Authority to do the job for him through a $986,000 grant from the federal government.