In the mid-1980's, the waterfront became the proverbial Gold Coast as new developments arose, bringing with them new residents, new stores and restaurants, and new jobs. Now the leading names doing business in Jersey City are principally in the fields of commerce and finance. The move of shipping away from the old finger piers along the Hudson and East Rivers to the container ports at Port Jersey, Port Newark and Port Elizabeth has been followed by the arrival in Jersey City of the offices of major shipping lines. Modern freight trains still travel through the city brining orange juice to the new Tropicana plant and carrying cars from the Port Authority auto port on the site of the old Greenville Yards of the Pennsylvania Railroad. Liberty State Park, first opened for the Bicentennial in 1976, acquired the abandoned terminal and plant of the Jersey Central and gave the area a major recreational facility with breathtaking views, ferries to Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty, and the sparkling new Liberty Science Center.
Jersey City is by no means a problem-free community.
However, it has bucked the trend by showing a population growth in the 1990 Census to the present level of 228,537. With a number of new middle and moderate-income housing units, an increase in professional and service jobs, a continuing sense of neighborhood, and a vitality apparent on every street, Jersey City proclaims that the American city is still a force to be reckoned with.