Though the panoramic view (from the Verrazano-Narrows to George Washington Bridges) may be its most famous attraction, Weehawken is also home to other sites of historic, aesthetic, and engineering importance:
- Hamilton Plaza is a park used by many tourists, wedding parties, advertising companies, fashion designers, and others for its famous backdrop as the setting for photographs.
- King's Bluff, a neighborhood at "the end of the Palisades" with many homes in an eclectic array of architectural styles
- The Weehawken Water Tower (on Park Avenue), built in the 1800's as part of the Hackensack Water Company complex, and inspired by Palazzo Vecchio in Florence
- The former North Hudson Hospital (on Park Avenue)
- The Public Library, former home of the Peters Brewery family (overlooking Park Ave and I-495)
- The Horseshoe (at Shippen Street), a cobbled double hairpin street leading to Hackensack Plank Road
- Shippen Street Steps, at the bottom of which is located Weehawken's original town hall
- Hackensack Number Two, (at Highpoint Avenue), a reservoir previously part Hudson County's water system along with #1 (demolished), and #3 and #4 in Jersey City Heights.
- The Lincoln Tunnel Toll Plaza, designed in Art Deco style, and The Helix, a eight-lane circular viaduct leading to it
- The Atrium, home to Hudson River Performing Arts Center-sponsored events
- The NY Waterway Ferry Terminal,
- The West Shore Railroad Tunnel, carved through the cliffs, and now used for the light rail system
- Hamilton Memorial (at the Boulevard Loop)
The first memorial to the duel was constructed in 1806 by the Saint Andrew Society, of which Hamilton was formerly a member. A 14 foot marble cenotaph, consisting of an obelisk topped by a flaming urn and a plaque with a quote from Horace surrounded by an iron fence, constructed approximately where Hamilton was believed to have fallen.[3] Duels continued to be fought at the site and the marble was slowly vandalized and removed for souvenirs, leaving nothing remaining by 1820. The tablet itself did survive, turning up in a junk store and finding its way to the New York Historical Society in Manhattan, where it still resides.
From 1820 to 1857, the site was marked by two stones with the names Hamilton and Burr placed where they were thought to have stood during the duel. When a road from Hoboken to Fort Lee was built through the site in 1858, an inscription on a boulder where a mortally wounded Hamilton was thought to have rested—one of the many pieces of graffiti left by visitors—was all that remained. No primary accounts of the duel confirm the boulder anecdote. In 1870, railroad tracks were built directly through the site, and the boulder was hauled to the top of the Palisades, where it remains today.[5] In 1894, an iron fence was built around the boulder, supplemented by a bust of Hamilton and a plaque. The bust was thrown over the cliff on October 14, 1934 by vandals and the head was never recovered; a new bust was installed on July 12, 1935.[6]
The plaque was stolen by vandals in the 1980s and an abbreviated version of the text was inscribed on the indentation left in the boulder, which remained until the 1990s when a granite pedestal was added in front of the boulder and the bust was moved to the top of the pedestal. New markers were added on July 11, 2004, the 200th anniversary of the duel.
