Bergen-Lafayette, Jersey City
Bergen-Lafayette is a part of Jersey City, New Jersey, made up of several neighborhoods. It sits west-southwest of Downtown and Liberty State Park. The area’s borders are informal, extending near Greenville to the south, West Bergen/Lincoln Park to the west, and McGinley Square to the north.
The name Bergen comes from the old Bergen settlement in the area. The district includes parts of the former Bergen City, which existed in the 1800s and merged with Jersey City in 1870.
Kennedy Boulevard and Bergen Avenue run north-south from Journal Square toward the river. The streets show lots of architectural variety: 19th-century rowhouses, Victorian mansions, pre-war and Art Deco buildings, and the Renaissance Revival former Jersey City YMCA. Monticello Avenue is a shopping district with many preserved storefronts.
Key landmarks include the Fairmount Apartments and Temple Beth-El on Kennedy Boulevard, and the statue Lincoln the Mystic by James Earle Fraser at the boulevard’s entrance. West Bergen overlaps with areas around McGinley Square, and the city promotes using the McGinley Square name.
In 2005, the former Jersey City Medical Center was renovated into The Beacon, a 14-acre development with about 1,200 new homes, located at the northwest corner of the district on Bergen Hill near McGinley Square.
Communipaw Junction is where Communipaw, Summit Avenue, Garfield Avenue, and Grand Street meet. The Bergen Hill Historic District centers on Summit Avenue as it climbs toward the Palisades. The area known as Bergen Hill refers to the rising ridge of the Palisades. The district isn’t on the National Register, but it has a state designation. Library Hall, built in 1866, is now a residential building. St. John’s Church is a notable local landmark. Lincoln High School sits on Crescent Avenue, and Ficken’s Warehouse on Grand Street anchors the street along the hill.
Historically, the area is tied to the old Hackensack Indian village of Communipaw and the 16th-century Jan Everts Bout plantation, sites of the Pavonia Massacre. Whitlock Cordage is a preserved industrial complex along the Morris Canal, now housing affordable units. Parts of the neighborhood are within the Communipaw-Lafayette Historic District.
Berry Lane Park is under construction along Garfield Avenue and will become the largest municipal park in Jersey City. The Liberty State Park, Garfield Avenue, and Martin Luther King stations of the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail lie on the district’s edge. Bus routes 6, 8, 16, 81, and 87 connect the area with Journal Square, Exchange Place, and Hoboken Terminal.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 09:28 (CET).