Exchange Place is a district of Downtown Jersey City, New Jersey, United States, that is sometimes referred to as "Wall Street West" due to the concentration of financial companies that have offices there. The namesake is a square, about 200 feet long, at the foot of Montgomery Street at the Hudson River. This square was created by landfilling the shore at Paulus Hook, and has been a major transportation hub since the colonial era.
As early as July 1764 a ferry began operating from Paulus Hook to Mesier's dock which was located at the foot of Courtland Street and where Battery Park City Ferry Terminal is located today. The first steam ferry service in New York Harbor and the world was established in 1812 by Robert Livingston and Robert Fulton and traveled between Paulus Hook and Cortlandt Street in Manhattan. The ferry dock stood at the head of the important highway to Newark established in 1795. The ferry in turn influenced the location of the terminal of the New Jersey Railroad, which opened in 1838 running from the ferry dock via Newark to New Brunswick. The railroad purchased the ferry operation in 1853 and in 1858 built a much-needed larger intermodal terminal. After acquiring the railroad in 1871, the Pennsylvania Railroad replaced the terminal in 1876 and yet again in 1888-1892. Passengers could move directly between the trains and ferries without going outside. The railroad referred to the location simply as Jersey City, and if necessary to distinguish it from other railroads' terminals, as the Pennsylvania station. It was probably the street railways, the local transportation in Jersey City, that first needed to identify the location more precisely as Exchange Place. Beginning with horsecars in 1860, the local network connected the ferry with neighborhoods in the city and nearby towns. An off-street terminal called "Exchange Place" was established in 1891. It was almost at the water's edge, across the street from the Pennsylvania Railroad terminal and with easy access to the ferries. Cars with signs reading EXCHANGE PLACE could be seen all over town. In 1901, the privately held land was given to the city by the PRR. The Hudson and Manhattan Railroad opened its tunnels from Exchange Place to New York in 1910. Significantly, the station was at first called "Pennsylvania Railroad Station", not Exchange Place, but by 1916 the name was expanded to include "Exchange Place". By 1926 the H & M station was simply "Exchange Place". The Pennsylvania Railroad did not officially give in until some years later, but all the stations, and the neighborhood, were firmly known as Exchange Place by the 1920s. For many years the location functioned similarly to Hudson Place, farther up the Hudson waterfront, as a terminus for the many trolley lines which crisscrossed Hudson County, as well as for those which traveled farther, from destinations such as the Newark Public Service Terminal, or the Broadway Terminal in Paterson. At one time more than ten lines operated by the Public Service Railway originated/terminated here. The substitution of rail lines with busses, colloquially known as bustitution, was completed in 1949. Ferry services were also discontinued in 1949, and while the Pennsylvania Railroad service dwindled after the opening of Penn Station in New York in 1910, it did not end until 1962. Following the end of service on the Jersey City Branch, the remains of the large terminal were demolished, leaving a large open space on the waterfront. This and the elimination of other railroad passenger and freight yards along the river during the 1960s and 1970s opened up the land that would be used for redevelopment. The continued use of the name "Exchange Place" was based on the Hudson and Manhattan station and signs on the bus routes that had replaced the trolleys. Since 2000, both a trolley service, in the form of the Hudson Bergen Light Rail, and a ferry service, provided by NY Waterway at the Paulus Hook Hook Ferry Terminal, have been restored. It is also the terminus for several New Jersey Transit and privately operated bus routes.
The ferry started in 1764 became known as the Jersey City Ferry but after nearly 200 years of service the last regular ferry service across the Hudson ended in the 1960s. Service was revived in 1986 and today ferries are operated by New York Waterway. A free connecting rush hour bus service in Paulus Hook provides a connection between the ferry slip and Grove Street Station for NY Waterway passengers.
