Jersey City in the context of "New York Harbor"

The Hudson River is a 315-mile (507 km) river that flows from north to south largely through eastern New York state. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains at Henderson Lake in the town of Newcomb, and flows south to New York Bay, a tidal estuary between New York and Jersey City, before draining into the Atlantic Ocean. The river marks boundaries between several New York counties and the eastern border between the U.S. states of New York and New Jersey. The lower half of the river is a tidal estuary, deeper than the body of water into which it flows, occupying the Hudson Fjord, an inlet that formed during the most recent period of North American glaciation, estimated at 26,000 to 13,300 years ago. Even as far north as the city of Troy, the flow of the river changes direction with the tides.

The Hudson River runs through the Munsee, Lenape, Mohican, Mohawk, and Haudenosaunee homelands. Prior to European exploration, the river was known as the Mahicannittuk by the Mohicans, Ka'nón:no by the Mohawks, and Muhheakantuck by the Lenape. The river was subsequently named after Henry Hudson, an Englishman sailing for the Dutch East India Company who explored it in 1609, and after whom Hudson Bay in Canada is also named. It had previously been observed by Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano sailing for King Francis I of France in 1524, as he became the first European known to have entered the Upper New York Bay, but he considered the river to be an estuary. The Dutch called the river the North River, and they called the present-day Delaware River the South River, which formed the spine of the Dutch colony of New Netherland. Settlements of the colony clustered around the Hudson, and its strategic importance as the gateway to the American interior led to years of competition between the English and the Dutch over control of the river and colony.

Bergen Neck is a peninsula in the United States, located between the Upper New York Bay and the Newark Bay in the Hudson County, New Jersey municipalities of Bayonne and Jersey City. Its southernmost tip, Bergen Point, is separated from Staten Island by the Kill van Kull, which is crossed by the Bayonne Bridge. It was likely first called so in the 17th century by the first Dutch and English speaking settlers to the region between the bays and northward along the Hudson River and Hackensack River. Though now part of Hudson County, the area was part of Bergen County from its creation in 1683 until Hudson County was created in 1840, and was part of Bergen Township, which lasted until 1862.

It was first named Oyster Island by the Dutch, who at first thought it was an island, and for a brief period after the British takeover of New Netherland in 1674 was called Old Hackensack Neck. During the American Revolution British maps showed it as Barren Neck. Bergen Neck is rarely used, occasionally replaced by the terms such as Bayonne Peninsula, Hudson Peninsula, South Hudson. It gave its name to a fort during the American Revolution, which was built in 1776, occupied by the British in 1777, and demolished in September 1782. (In British hands the fort was renamed for Oliver De Lancey, Sr. as Fort Delancey.)It still lends its name to First Reformed Dutch Church of Bergen Neck in Bayonne.

Curries Woods is a neighborhood in the southern part of Greenville in Jersey City, New Jersey bordering Bayonne. It was named after James Curie, who was on the town Committee for Greenville when it was its own Township in the 19th century. The area remained rural until the later part of the century when the Central Railroad of New Jersey built a line connecting ferries to Elizabeth, New Jersey and New York City. Currie's Woods still remained untouched through the late part of the century and it was valued for its woods, rocky shore and dunes on Newark Bay. A lot of the land was eventually lost, but a tract was set aside in the early part of the 20th century. A small cemetery, the Old Greenville Cemetery, was nearby. This park lost much of its land to the city's largest Housing Authority project in 1959, except a small tract in Bayonne, Mercer Park.