Right to left, Elizabeth Crespin, Valery Okeeneva, and Tiffany Layne joined an man who did not give his name on the Battery Park City Esplanade to take in Jersey City’s fireworks display on July 4.
BY COLIN MIXSON
New Jersey’s loss was Battery Park City’s gain.
Nick Barbu and Laura Formanek made some fireworks of their own on the esplanade.
A budget impasse over in Dirty Jersey that shutdown public parks across the state caused the annual July 4th fireworks display normally held at Liberty State Park to head further north into Jersey City, making the Battery Park City esplanade an unusually excellent spot for viewing the holiday pyrotechnics, according to one local.
“Ironically with the move of the fireworks further north, we had front row seats,” said Battery Park City resident Richard Southwick. “We can always count on Chris Christie.”
Downtowners were expecting to be cheated out of this year’s Independence Day fireworks, after Macy’s announced that it was moving its annual East River display upriver from the its traditional Lower Manhattan location at the Brooklyn Bridge, but the last-minute change for the New Jersey fireworks gave Battery Park Citizens an ideal view.
The display’s launching pad, on a barge moored off Jersey City’s Exchange Place, couldn’t have been better located for viewing off the Battery Park City Esplanade, and a relatively cloudless night gave spectators stunning sightlines across the Hudson River, according to one Midtown gal.
Downtowners still got a show, even after Macy’s took its display upriver to Midtown this year, because Jersey City moved its fireworks to the Hudson river.
“It wasn’t cloudy that night,” said Tiffany Layne. “We could see the fireworks perfectly.”
The choice view from the esplanade came as a big surprise for Layne, who took for granted that East River views always trumped Hudson River prospects when it came to fireworks.
“We didn’t think we’d be able to see fireworks from the west side, so that was a good surprise,” she said.
