New Brunswick and Transportation: A Brief Sketch of the History of Transportation and the Architecture of the Train Station

Abstract

AS L O N G as anyone can remember, New Brunswick has been called the Hub City because of its important geographic position north of Trenton and Philadelphia, south of New York, and alongside the Raritan River. A business interest in transportation grew naturally in such a fortuitously located city. The nearby Raritan provided New Brunswick with the opportunity to build a profitable shipping industry, which it did promptly and with much success. But prosperity faded, at least temporarily, with the advent of rail travel, which was so much more efficient in transporting goods and passengers that it squelched local shipping interests. It was not until the Civil War era that the city flourished again, this time in the manufacturing industry. The European settlers of New Brunswick realized the potential of the city's geography, and in the seventeenth century they linked East New Brunswick (present-day Highland Park) and New Brunswick proper with a passenger ferry that crossed the river. In the eighteenth century, New Brunswick's businessmen began to ship New Jersey produce downstream to New York. The business of transportation grew at an impressive pace, and more sophisticated travel technology was developed to match its demands. By 1801 the city had its first paved street. From 1830-1833 work crews toiled to complete the Delaware and Raritan Canal at a cost of three million dollars. The canal was one of the major engineering feats of this era. By 1830 the New Brunswick shipyards were bustling; nearly a million bushels of grain passed through the city in that year. Aggressive foreign trade made the Raritan one of the most commercially significant rivers in the country. Steamboats plied the Raritan to and from New York four