The Old CRRNJ Terminal: The Room Where Immigrants' Journeys Began

The large, echoing train shed and head house at the northern end of Liberty State Park is the former Central Railroad of New Jersey Terminal, often called the CRRNJ Terminal. Built in the late 19th century and expanded over time, it was for decades one of the busiest transportation hubs in the New York harbor region.

Its role in American immigration history is what sets it apart. After processing at Ellis Island, many newly arrived immigrants took a short ferry ride to this terminal in Jersey City and boarded trains here for destinations across the United States. For those families, the concourse of this building was quite literally the room where their American journeys began.

At its peak, the terminal served numerous rail lines and ferry routes, with trains departing for points throughout New Jersey, Pennsylvania and beyond, and ferries crossing to Manhattan. As rail travel declined after World War II and the railroads consolidated, service shrank, and passenger trains last used the terminal in the 1960s. The building later became the centerpiece of Liberty State Park.

Today the restored head house is open to visitors, and ferries for the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island depart from nearby. Interpretive exhibits inside explain the terminal's history and the immigration story connected to it. Even without an exhibit, the scale of the concourse and the train shed behind it communicates how much movement once passed through this single point on the waterfront.

If you visit, take a few minutes to stand in the middle of the concourse and look at the departure boards and the shed beyond the windows. Then step outside to the water. The short distance between the ferry landing and the tracks explains the building's purpose better than any plaque: harbor on one side, continent on the other, and this room in between.