Union City is a city in the northern part of Hudson County , in the U. Two major waves of immigration, first of German speakers and then of Spanish speakers, greatly influenced the development and character of Union City. Its two nicknames , "Embroidery Capital of the United States" and " Havana on the Hudson ", reflect important aspects of that history. Thousands visit Union City each year to see the nation's longest-running passion play.
Union City is where Mallomars were first sold and the site of the first lunch wagon , built by Jerry and Daniel O'Mahoney and John Hanf, which helped spark New Jersey's golden age of diner manufacturing, for which the state is colloquially referred to by author Richard J. Gutman as the "diner capital of the world".
The area of what is today Union City was originally inhabited by the Munsee-speaking branch of Lenape Native Americans , [ 33 ] [ 34 ] [ 35 ] [ 36 ] [ 37 ] [ 38 ] who wandered into the vast woodland area encountered by Henry Hudson during the voyages he conducted from to for the Dutch , who later claimed the area which included the future New York City and named it New Netherland.
The portion of that land that included the future Hudson County was purchased from members of the Hackensack tribe of the Lenni-Lenape and became part of Pavonia, New Netherland. The relationship between the early Dutch settlers and Native Americans was marked by frequent armed conflict over land claims. North of this was the unpopulated Bergen Woods, which would later be claimed by settlers, after whom a number of Union City streets today are named, [ 41 ] including Sipp Street, [ 45 ] [ 46 ] [ 47 ] Brown Street, [ 46 ] [ 48 ] Golden Lane, [ 48 ] Tournade Street and Kerrigan Avenue, [ 49 ] which is named after J.
The area that would one day be Union City, however, remained sparsely populated until the early 19th century. The British granted Bergen a new town charter in In they created Bergen County , which was named to honor their Dutch predecessors. That county included all of present-day Hudson, Bergen and Passaic counties. Sparsely inhabited during the 17th and 18th centuries, the southeast section of Bergen County had grown by the early 19th century to the point where it was deemed necessary to designate it a separate county.
