New Jersey Monthly Magazine recently posted an article about the ubiquitous Hamilton. Not the Broadway musical but the man himself, Alexander Hamilton, was right here on the Gold Coast of New Jersey.
If Lin-Manuel Miranda’s masterful Broadway distillation of the extraordinary exploits of Alexander Hamilton has you thinking that “the ten-dollar/founding father/without a father” only ventured to New Jersey to meet his untimely end, think again. Hamilton also studied, dreamed, fought and loved on our side of the Hudson.
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With its winding paths and sweeping views of Manhattan, Hamilton Park, high atop the Palisades in Weehawken (J.F. Kennedy Boulevard East at Hudson Place), is a hot spot for bridal-party shoots, but it is not where Hamilton was fatally shot. The deadly encounter took place at the Weehawken Dueling Grounds on a nearby rocky ledge above the Hudson River, roughly across from Manhattan’s 42nd Street. To see the reddish boulder that Hamilton is believed to have rested against after being hit, walk south to where Hamilton Avenue meets Boulevard East. It’s behind an iron fence, next to a granite pedestal bearing a bust of the ill-fated duelist. Visitors toss pennies onto the rock. Sadly, Hamilton’s eldest son, Philip, had died three years earlier (at 19) in a duel at the grounds.