Country Village is a residential enclave in the southwestern corner of the Greenville section on the West Side of

Jersey City, New Jersey Jersey City is the List of municipalities in New Jersey, second-most populous

that was built as planned community in the early 1960s.

Design and geography

Designed as "suburbia-in-the-city" the community consists of one-family Colonial style homes, two-family Cape Cod-style homes, and one-family ranch-style homes streets with the names Sycamore Road, Norcroft Road, Suburbia Terrace, Delmar Road, and Oakdale Road. The houses are densely placed and some have garages so there are few front gardens, though most streets are tree-lined. Country Village is enclosed on its southern and western perimeter side by

New Jersey Route 440 Route 440 is a State highways in New_Jersey, state highway in New Jersey, United States. It comprises two segments, a Controlled-access highway, freeway in Middlesex County, New Jersey, Middlesex County linking Interstate 287 (I-287) and the Ne ...

, across from which is

Newark Bay Newark Bay is a tidal bay at the confluence of the Passaic and Hackensack Rivers in northeastern New Jersey. It is home to the Port Newark-Elizabeth Marine Terminal, the largest container shipping facility in Port of New York and New Jerse ...

. Access to the waterfront is limited due to the highway, presenting an obstacle to the development of the Hackensack RiverWalk planned along its shores. The city-line with

Bayonne Bayonne () is a city in southwestern France near the France–Spain border, Spanish border. It is a communes of France, commune and one of two subprefectures in France, subprefectures in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques departments of France, departm ...

cuts through a small southern part of the neighborhood. The line was originally created along the banks of the

Morris Canal The Morris Canal (1829–1924) was a toll road, common carrier Anthracite, anthracite coal canal across North Jersey, northern New Jersey that connected the two industrial canals in Easton, Pennsylvania across the Delaware River from its weste ...

, a short filled section of the national historic site running through Country Village as an unmarked, undeveloped, right of way. It creates the official eastern perimeter of the enclave, though the western slope descending from Kennedy Boulevard is somewhat similar in style and character.

Danforth Avenue Danforth Avenue (informally also known as the Danforth) and Danforth Road are two historically-related arterial streets in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Danforth ''Avenue'' is an east-west street that begins in Old Toronto at the Prince Edward Vi ...

, a major crosstown and commercial street of Greenville, is to the north, its intersection at West Side Avenue marking the origination point of that avenue. To the south are the approaches to two bay crossings, the Newark Bay Bridge and the Lehigh Valley Railroad Bridge. The neighborhood is in the city's Ward "A" and along with neighboring

is part of Freeholders District 1.

History

The purpose of the new housing was to offer middle-income urban dwellers an opportunity to buy homes in a residential area with an "out of town" feel without the need for long commutes. In 1959 Jersey City Planning Commission rezoned the undeveloped industrial tract for residential use. Census figures for the city had revealed a steady decline in the population. (After reaching a height of 316,715 in 1930 and by 1960 the downward trend had reached 276,101.) It was hoped that the creation of new residential districts would increase the population of the city once again. The low-lying area had never been developed because of drainage and sewerage problems. Interested parties in the site were discouraged by the land reclamation requirements for factories to be constructed there. In 1960, however, the builder Alexander Muss took on the task of filling in the lowland area with 400,000 square yards of landfill costing over $500,000. The source of the landfill was sand pumped in from the bottom of Newark Bay. When completed, the 553 houses that cost from $19,000 to $23,000 were reportedly all sold by 1964.NJCU:Country Village

Transportation

NJ Transit New Jersey Transit Corporation, branded as NJ Transit or NJTransit and often shortened to NJT, is a state-owned public transportation system that serves the U.S. state of New Jersey and portions of the states of New York and Pennsylvania. I ...

buses 8, 9, 10, 14, 80, and 129 serve this area.

References

{{Crossings navbox , structure = Bridges , place =

, bridge = Lehigh Valley Railroad Draw Bridge ---- Newark Bay Bridge , bridge signs = I-78

----

CRRNJ Newark Bay Bridge The Newark Bay Bridge of the Central Railroad of New Jersey (CNJ) was a railroad bridge in New Jersey that connected Elizabethport and Bayonne at the southern end of Newark Bay. Its third and final incarnation was a four-track vertical-lift ...

''(demolished)'' , downstream =

Arthur Kill Vertical Lift Bridge The Arthur Kill Vertical Lift Bridge is a rail vertical-lift bridge connecting Elizabethport, New Jersey, and the Howland Hook Marine Terminal on Staten Island, New York, United States. The bridge was built by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad ...

(

Arthur Kill The Arthur Kill (sometimes referred to as the Staten Island Sound) is a tidal strait in the New York–New Jersey Harbor Estuary between Staten Island (also known as Richmond County), New York, and Union and Middlesex counties, New Jersey. It ...

) ----

Bayonne Bridge The Bayonne Bridge is an Through arch bridge, arch bridge that spans the Kill Van Kull between Staten Island, New York (state), New York, and Bayonne, New Jersey, Bayonne, New Jersey, United States. It carries New York State Route 440 and ...

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Kill Van Kull __NOTOC__ The Kill Van Kull is a tidal strait between Staten Island, New York (state), New York, and Bayonne, New Jersey, Bayonne, New Jersey, in the United States. It is approximately long and wide and connects Newark Bay with Upper New York ...

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, downstream signs = , upstream = Newark and New York Railroad Bridge
(

Hackensack River The Hackensack River is a river, about 45 miles (72 km) long, in the U.S. states of New York and New Jersey, emptying into Newark Bay, a back chamber of New York Harbor. The watershed of the river includes part of the suburban ar ...

Passaic River The Passaic River ( or ) is a river, approximately long, in North Jersey, northern New Jersey. The river in its upper course flows in a highly circuitous route, meandering through the swamp lowlands between the ridge hills of rural and suburb ...

)
''(demolished)'' ----

Lincoln Highway The Lincoln Highway is one of the first transcontinental highways in the United States and one of the first highways designed expressly for automobiles. Conceived in 1912 by Indiana entrepreneur Carl G. Fisher, and formally dedicated Octob ...

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Neighborhoods in Jersey City, New Jersey