Bergen
Kennedy Boulevard and Bergen Avenue are a major north-south thoroughfares in the city running south from Journal Square. A variety of architectural styles can be found along these streets and their side streets including 19th-century townhouses, Victorian mansions, and pre-war apartment buildings. Monticello Avenue is a shopping district lined with many turn-of-the-century buildings with storefronts being brought back into use.
The Fairmount Apartments and Temple Beth-El are prominent landmarks on the Boulevard. West Bergen overlaps this neighborhood while the city is now defining this area with maps and other promotions to encourage use of the name McGinley Square.
The Junction
The Junction is where Communipaw, Summit Avenue, Garfield Avenue, and Grand Street meet. The Bergen Hill Historic District is centered on Summit Avenue as it ascends from the Junction. Bergen Hill, also known as The Hill has a state designation and has a prominent landmark being St John’s Church
Martin Luther King Drive has long been a commercial street for the southern part of the district. The neighborhood sometimes called Claremont lies south of Arlington Park.
Bergen-Lafayette features a variety of bus routes that take riders to Journal Square, Exchange Place, and the New Jersey Transit/PATH terminal in Hoboken where they can catch rail and ferry options to New York and other destinations.
In addition, two stops on the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail are in the periphery of the neighborhood: Liberty State Park and Garfield Avenue Stations.
Communipaw-Lafayette
Lafayette Park gives its name to the lower, or eastern, portion of the district closest to Downtown Jersey City. A city square similar to Van Vorst Park and Hamilton Park, the buildings surrounding it were constructed in different periods. Whitlock Cordage (now known as Whitlock Mills) is an intact complex of industrial buildings built in the Lafayette section along the banks of the Morris Canal. The Housing Trust of America purchased the property to preserve the structures as affordable housing. Parts of the neighborhood are part of the Communipaw-Lafayette Historic District. Berry Lane Park is the largest municipal park in Jersey City, is under construction along Garfield Avenue.
The Liberty State Park, Garfield Avenue, and Martin Luther King stations of the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail are on the periphery of the section. New Jersey Transit bus routes 6, 43, 81, 87 to Journal Square, Exchange Place, and Hoboken Terminal serve the area locally, as does the independent Bergen Avenue bus.
