The
Hudson River is a river that flows from north to
south through eastern New
York
. It rises at Lake Tear of the
Clouds
, on the slopes of Mount Marcy
in the Adirondack
Mountains, flows past Albany
, and finally
forms the border between New York City
and New
Jersey
at its mouth before emptying into Upper New York
Bay
. Its lower half is an estuary, experiencing tidal influence as far north
as Troy
.
The river
is named for Henry Hudson, an Englishman
sailing for the Dutch East India Company, who
explored it in 1609.
The Hudson River was observed by Italian explorer
Giovanni da Verrazano in 1524 as he
became the first European historically known to have entered Upper
New York Bay.
Early
European settlement of the area
clustered around the Hudson. The area inspired the
Hudson River School of painting, an
American pastoral style.
Names
The names of the Hudson River make a complicated story.It was
called
Muh-he-kun-ne-tuk, the
Great Mohegan, by the
Iroquois, or as the
Lenape
Native Americans called it in Unami,
Muhheakantuck.
In the early days of European exploration the Hudson was known as
the Mauritius River. This is said to be the name given it by Henry
Hudson in honor of
Prince Maurice of
Nassau, but it is also said to be the name given by
sixteenth-century European adventurers, explorers, and fishermen
who knew it as River Mauritius, 'The River of Mountains'.
The Hudson
was named the "North River
" by the Dutch, who called the Delaware River the "South
River."The name "North River" was used in the
New York
City area up until the early 1900s, with limited use
continuing into the modern day.The term persists in radio
communication among commercial shipping traffic, especially below
Tappan Zee.
It was the English who originated the use of the name "Hudson"—even
though Hudson had found the river while exploring for the
Dutch.
Geography
The
official source of the
Hudson is Lake Tear of
the Clouds in the Adirondack
Mountains. However, the waterway from the lake is known
as Feldspar Brook and the Opalescent River, feeding into the Hudson
at Tahawus
. The actual Hudson River begins several
miles north of Tahawus at
Henderson
Lake.
The Hudson is joined at Troy (north of Albany) by the
Mohawk River, its major tributary, just
south of which the Federal Dam
separates the Upper Hudson River Valley from the
Lower Hudson River Valley or simply the
Hudson River
Valley. The river then flows south, passing between
the Catskill Mountains and the
Taconic
Mountains
, widening significantly at the Tappan Zee, finally flowing between Manhattan Island
and the New Jersey Palisades
and into the Atlantic Ocean
at New York Bay, an arm
of the ocean, where it forms New York
Harbor.
The lower Hudson is actually a tidal
estuary, with tidal influence extending as far as
the Federal Dam at Troy. Strong
tides make
parts of
New York Harbor difficult
and dangerous to navigate. During the winter, ice floes drift south
or north, depending upon the tides. The Mahican name of the river,
Muh-he-kun-ne-tuk, means "the river that flows both ways."
The Hudson is often mistaken for one of the largest rivers in the
United States, but it is an
estuary
throughout most of its length below Troy and thus only a small
fraction of freshwater, about 15,000 cubic feet
(425 m³/s) per second, is present. The mean freshwater
discharge at the river's mouth in New York is approximately
21,400 cubic feet (606 m³) per second.The Hudson and its
tributaries, notably the Mohawk River, drain a large area.
Parts of
the Hudson River form coves, such as Weehawken
Cove
in Hoboken
and Weehawken
.
The Hudson is sometimes called, in geological terms, a "drowned"
river. The rising
sea levels after the
retreat of the
Wisconsin
glaciation, the most recent
ice age,
have resulted in a
marine incursion that
drowned the coastal plain and brought salt water well above the
mouth of the river. The deeply-eroded old riverbed beyond the
current shoreline,
Hudson Canyon, is a
rich fishing area. The former riverbed is clearly delineated
beneath the waters of the Atlantic Ocean, extending to the edge of
the
continental shelf.
Delaware and Hudson
Canal ended at the Hudson at
Kingston
, running southwest to the
coal
fields of northeastern
Pennsylvania
.
Notable
landmarks on the Hudson include West
Point
, Home of Franklin D.
Roosevelt National Historic
Site, Bard
College
, the Culinary Institute of America
, Marist College, the
Thayer
Hotel
at West Point, Bannerman's Castle
, Metro-North
Railroad's Hudson Line
(formerly part of the New York
Central Railroad system), The Tappan
Zee, the New
Jersey Palisades, Hudson River Islands State
Park
, Hudson Highlands State Park
, Sing
Sing
Correctional Facility, New York
Military Academy
, Fort
Tryon Park
with
The
Cloisters
, Liberty
State Park
, and Stevens Institute of
Technology
. Cities and towns on the New Jersey side include Tenafly
, Fort Lee
, Edgewater, West New York, Weehawken, Hoboken, and Jersey City
. Cities in New York State include Troy, Albany, Kingston, Poughkeepsie
, Glens Falls
, Yonkers
, and New York City.
The
natural beauty of the Hudson Valley
earned the Hudson River the nickname "America's
Rhine", being compared to that of the famous 40 mile
(65 km) stretch of Germany's Rhine River
valley between the cities of Bingen
and
Koblenz
. A similar 30-mile (48 km) stretch on
the east bank of the Hudson has been designated the
Hudson River Historic
District, a
National
Historic Landmark. The Hudson was designated as one of the
American Heritage Rivers in
1997.
The Narrows
The Narrows
, a tidal stream between the New York City boroughs of
Staten
Island
and Brooklyn
, connects the upper and lower sections of New York
Bay. It has long been considered the maritime "gateway" to
New York City and historically has been the most important entrance
into the harbor.
The Narrows were most likely formed about 6,000 years ago at
the end of the last ice age. Previously, Staten Island and Long
Island were connected, preventing the Hudson River from terminating
via The Narrows.
At that time, the Hudson River emptied into
the Atlantic Ocean through a more westerly course through parts of
present day northern New Jersey, along the eastern side of the
Watchung Mountains to Bound Brook,
New Jersey
and then on into the Atlantic Ocean via Raritan Bay
. A build up of water in the Upper Bay
eventually allowed the Hudson River to break through previous land
mass that was connecting Staten Island and Brooklyn to form The
Narrows as it exists today. This allowed the Hudson River to find a
shorter route to the Atlantic Ocean via its present course between
New Jersey and New York City (Waldman, 2000).
North River
North
River is an alternate name for its southernmost portion of the
Hudson usually referring to all or part of the waterway located
between Manhattan and Hudson
County. The colonial name given by the Dutch to the
entire river in the early seventeenth century, the term fell out of
popular use for most of it some time in the early 1900s, but
continues in use locally by mariners and others as well as on some
nautical charts and maps.
The term
also lives on in the names of a variety of Manhattan facilities
along the waterway such as the North
River piers, North River Tunnels
, and the North
River Wastewater Treatment Plant
, and has strong historical ties with New York Harbor.
Haverstraw Bay
Haverstraw
Bay
, just north of the Tappan
Zee (the widest part of the river), is located between Croton
Point in the Southeast and the town of Haverstraw in the
Northwest. Haverstraw Bay is a popular destination for
recreational boaters, and is home to many Yacht clubs and marinas
including Croton Yacht Club, Croton Sailing School, Pennybridge
Marina, Minisceongo Yacht Club, Stony Point Bay Marina, and
Haverstraw Marina, and is traversed by
NY
Waterway's Haverstraw-Ossining Ferry.
Transportation
The
Hudson River is navigable for a great
distance above mile 0 (at 40°42.1'N., 74°01.5'W.) off The
Battery
. The original Erie
Canal, opened in 1825 to connect the Hudson with Lake Erie,
emptied into the Hudson at the Albany
Basin, just three miles (5 km) south of the Federal
Dam in Troy (at mile
134). The canal enabled shipping between cities on
the Great
Lakes
and Europe via the Atlantic
Ocean. The
New York
State Canal System, the successor to the Erie Canal, runs into
the Hudson River north of Troy and uses the Federal Dam as the Lock
1 and natural waterways whenever possible.
The first railroad in New York, the Mohawk and Hudson Railroad,
opened in 1831 between Albany and Schenectady
on the Mohawk River,
enabling passengers to bypass the slowest part of the Erie
Canal.
In
northern Troy, the Champlain Canal
split from the Erie Canal and continued north along
the west side of the Hudson to Thomson, where it crossed to the east
side. At Fort Edward
the canal left the Hudson, heading northeast to
Lake
Champlain
. A
barge canal now splits from the Hudson
at that point, taking roughly the same route (also parallel to the
Delaware and Hudson
Railway's
Saratoga
and Whitehall Railroad) to Lake Champlain at
Whitehall.
From Lake Champlain,
boats can continue north into Canada
to the
Saint Lawrence
Seaway.
The
Hudson Valley also proved
attractive for railroads, once technology progressed to the point
where it was feasible to construct the required bridges over
tributaries. The
Troy and
Greenbush Railroad was chartered in 1845 and opened that same
year, running a short distance on the east side between Troy and
Greenbush (east of Albany). The
Hudson River Railroad was
chartered the next year as a continuation of the Troy and Greenbush
south to New York City, and was completed in 1851.
In 1866 the Hudson River
Bridge
opened over the river between Greenbush and Albany,
enabling through traffic between the Hudson River Railroad and the
New York Central Railroad
west to Buffalo
. When the Poughkeepsie Rail Bridge
opened in 1879, it became the longest single span
bridge in the world. On October 3, 2009, it re-opened as a
pedestrian walkway over the Hudson, as part of the Hudson River
Quadricentennial Celebrations and connects over 25 miles of
existing pedestrian trails.
[7738]
The
New York, West Shore and Buffalo
Railway ran up the west shore of the Hudson as a competitor to
the merged
New York Central and
Hudson River Railroad. Construction was slow, and was finally
completed in 1884; the New York Central purchased the line the next
year.
The Hudson is crossed at numerous points by
bridges,
tunnels, and
ferries.
The width of the Lower Hudson River required
major feats of engineering to cross, the results today visible in
the Verrazano-Narrows
and George Washington
Bridges, as well as the Lincoln and Holland
Tunnels and the PATH
and Pennsylvania
Railroad tubes. The Troy-Waterford Bridge
at Waterford was the first bridge
over the Hudson, opened in 1809. The Rensselaer and Saratoga
Railroad was chartered in 1832 and opened in 1835, including
the Green Island
Bridge
, the first bridge over the Hudson south of the
Federal Dam. [7739]
The
Upper Hudson River
Valley was also useful for railroads.
Sections of the
Rensselaer and Saratoga Railroad, Troy and Boston Railroad and
Albany Northern Railroad
ran next to the Hudson between Troy and Mechanicville
. North of Mechanicville the shore was bare
until Glens
Falls, where the short Glens Falls Railroad ran along the east
shore. At Glens Falls the Hudson turns west to
Corinth before continuing north; at
Corinth the
Adirondack
Railway begins to run along the Hudson's west bank.
The
original Adirondack Railway opened by 1871, ending at North
Creek
along the river. In World War II an extension opened to Tahawus, the site of valuable iron and
titanium mine.
The
extension continued along the Hudson River into Hamilton
County
, and then continued north where the Hudson makes a
turn to the west, crossing the Hudson and running along the west
shore of the Boreas River. South
of Tahawus the route returned to the east shore of the Hudson the
rest of the way to its terminus.
NASA image of the lower Hudson
NASA image of the lower Hudson
Political boundaries
The Hudson River serves as a
political
boundary between the states of New Jersey and New York, and
further north between New York
counties.
The northernmost
place with this convention is in southwestern Essex
County
.
Tributaries
- See Rivers of the
Hudson River Basin for an alphabetical listing including
tributaries of tributaries.
View of the Catskills from
Rhinecliff
From north to south, moving downriver
Note
kill as used
above is the Dutch word for
creek. This can obviously
cause confusion since
kill is an English word with a
totally different meaning. Sometimes the original Dutch colonial
name is retained, as in Poestin Kill. Sometimes the Dutch name is
redundantly combined with the English word, as in Fishkill Creek
(Fish Creek Creek, not a creek named after the killing of
fish).
Theodore Roosevelt's historic route
On
September 14, 1901, then-Vice President Theodore Roosevelt was at Lake Tear of
the Clouds after returning from a hike to the Mount Marcy summit when he received a message informing him
that President
William McKinley, who had been shot
two weeks earlier but was expected to survive, had taken a turn for
the worse.
Roosevelt
hiked down 10 miles (16 km) on the southwest side of the
mountain to the closest stage station at Long Lake,
New York
. He then took a 40 mile (64 km)
midnight stage coach ride through the twisting Adirondack Roads to
the Adirondack Railway station at North Creek, where he discovered
that McKinley had died. Roosevelt took the train to Buffalo, New
York, where he was officially sworn in as President.
The
40 mile (64 km) route is now designated the Roosevelt-Marcy Trail
.
Pollution
In 1966,
Pete Seeger and
Toshi Seeger founded
Hudson River Sloop Clearwater.
This is both an environmental education organization and an actual
boat (a
sloop) that promotes awareness of the
river and its history. Clearwater has gained national recognition
for its activism starting in the 1970s to force a clean-up of PCB
contamination of the Hudson River caused by industrial
manufacturing by
General Electric
Corporation (GE) and other companies on the river's edge.
GE's
Hudson
Falls
and Fort Edward
facilities discharged between and of polychlorinated biphenyl (PCBs)
into the river from 1947 to 1977. In 1976 the
New York
State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) banned
all fishing in the Upper Hudson due to health concerns with PCBs.
In 1983, the
United States
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) declared a 200 mile
(322 km) stretch of the river, from Hudson Falls to New York
City, to be a
Superfund site requiring
cleanup. GE began
dredging operations to
clean up the PCBs on May 15, 2009
In 1980,
Consolidated Edison agreed to
drop its 17-year fight to build a pumped-storage
hydroelectricity facility on Storm King Mountain
. This action spurred the
Riverkeeper program that grew into a global
umbrella organization, the
Waterkeeper Alliance.
Other
pollution issues affecting the
river include: accidental
sewage
discharges,
urban runoff,
heavy metals,
furans,
dioxin,
pesticides, and
polycyclic aromatic
hydrocarbons (PAHs).
A study reported in the August 2008 issue of the journal
Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry suggests that
mercury in common Hudson River fish,
including
striped bass,
yellow perch,
largemouth bass,
smallmouth bass and
carp, has declined strongly over the past three
decades. The conclusions were extracted from a large database of
mercury analyses of fish fillets accumulated by NYSDEC and
collected over much of the length of the Hudson from New York City
waters to the Adirondack
watershed.
The research indicates that the trends are in line with the
recovery that the Hudson River has experienced over the past few
decades, now that activist groups, government officials and
industry are beginning to cooperate to help clean up the river
system.
NYSDEC has listed various portions of the Hudson was having
impaired
water quality due to
PCBs,
cadmium, and other
toxic compounds.
Hudson River tributaries with impaired water
quality (not necessarily the same pollutants as the Hudson main
stem) are Mohawk River, Dwaas Kill,
Schuyler Creek, Saw Mill River,
Esopus Creek, Hoosic River, Quaker Creek, Batten Kill
. Many lakes in the Hudson
drainage basin are also listed.
The Hudson River estuary system is part of
The National
Estuarine Research Reserve System.
Miscellaneous
In 2004, Christopher Swain became the first person to swim the
entire length of the Hudson River.
The
New Jersey Devils/New York Rangers hockey rivalry is known as
the Hudson River rivalry
because the Devils are based in Newark
and the Rangers are based across the Hudson River
in Manhattan.
There
have been reported sightings of a sea serpent living in the Hudson
River called Kipsy after the city of Poughkeepsie. There is a mural painted by Dick and
Margaret Crenson just off Main Street in Poughkeepsie. There have
also been reported sightings elsewhere along the Hudson
River.
See also
References
External links
(NJ)
(NJ)
, which had a forced landing in the Hudson in
January 2009
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