Schuetzen Park

Schuetzen Park is a privately owned park in North Bergen, New Jersey, USA that has existed since 1874 and is located on the ridge of the Hudson Palisades at Kennedy Boulevard and Bergen Turnpike just north of the Marginal Highway. Its southern and western perimeters are shared with the Fritz Reuter Altenheim, a retirement community named for the German author, Fritz Reuter, and Columbia Park, a large shopping center. The German-American Volksfest has taken place there annually since its construction.HistoryIn 1864, nearby Union Hill was set apart from North Bergen as a separate municipality that had been originally settled by a group of German-Americans as early as 1851. The Plattduetsche Volksfest Vereen organization of New York and New Jersey (PVV), which was created in 1874, purchased the property in 1894. It expanded into an amusement park that featured three dancing pavilions and ten bowling alleys, which entertained up to 50,000 attendees at a time with vaudeville performances and tournaments, parades, and fireworks. Schuetzen is a derivative of the German word Schütze, meaning "shooter" or "rifleman". Originally encompassing about 32 acres, the park's location on the western cuesta of the Hudson Palisades was chosen so that bullets could be directed into the side of the hill. Target practice continued at the park until 1935. Over the years much of the property was sold off, a large portion of which was acquired by the government to build Route 495 leading to the Lincoln Tunnel.