"On the Waterfront" is about a guy who coulda been a contender.

What it's not about is the waterfront.

It didn't need to be — that part was taken for granted. Nobody, in 1954, questioned that a waterfront was the meanest, toughest, grimmest place on earth, a spot where only a bruiser like Marlon Brando would be seen.

But should it be? London, Paris, and many other European cities have waterfronts that are civic gems — esplanades that offer scenic views of boats, bridges and buildings.

Only in America, apparently, was it still considered normal for a riverfront to consist of rotting wharves, crumbling warehouses, reeds, weeds, and old tires. No one seemed to care. For many decades, Manhattan's waterfront was barely accessible to pedestrians.

All that has changed in Manhattan, since the completion of the Hudson River Greenway in 2013. And now, it's starting to change on the Jersey side.

"Some day we hope you'll be able to walk all 18 miles, from the George Washington Bridge to the Bayonne Bridge," said Don Stitzenberg, president of the Hudson River Waterfront Conservancy.

His group, founded in 1984, is dedicated to making North Jersey's Hudson River Waterfront Walkway safe, uniform, attractive, and accessible to walkers, bikers and joggers. New Jerseyans should insist upon this, they say. After all, we're the ones with the view.

"There's nothing like the grandeur, the size, the vitality, those magnificent buildings on the other side of the river," said Helen Manoque, past president of the Conservancy, and one-time head of the Hoboken Environment Committee. "To my mind, that's the embodiment of what it means to be an American."

She was one of many Jerseyans, in the 1980s and 1990s, who fought corporate and real estate interests to give the public its waterfront back. Once the great era of shipping had passed, they argued, there was no reason for decayed shipyards, railyards and tank farms to block public access to one of the greatest views on earth.

"There's nothing like a sunrise on that cityscape — or a sunset," Manoque said.

Today, one of the best places to see it is the Walkway, which rambles through 18.6 miles of Bergen and Hudson counties — with a few gaps and detours along the way. Which is why we decided to take a little walk.

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Walk the walk

Why not, we said, hike the entire length of the Walkway, in order to take stock of conditions? Since the Bayonne stretch is not yet fully navigable, Stitzenberg suggested something more modest: a mere 14 miles, from Fort Lee to Jersey City.

In fact, it's more like 20 miles, if you count meanderings (we walked it in two days). That would include Fort Lee, Edgewater, North Bergen, Guttenberg, West New York, Weehawken, Hoboken (the waterfront of "On the Waterfront") and Jersey City.

"The walkway runs through nine municipalities," said Stitzenberg, a Weehawken resident. "Some municipalities do a better job of maintaining it than others. The conservancy tries to bring a single coordinated standard oversight of the walkway."

As we start at Fort Lee and work our way south, it becomes clear what he means.

Some parts of the trail are just dirt paths, hacked through the overgrowth. Others are magnificent paved promenades, with stunning views of Manhattan's skyscrapers.

Less well-kept portions have gaps in the paving stones, or shrubs intruding into the walk, or cafe tables and chairs, from al fresco restaurants, that turn the walk into an obstacle course. A few times, we have to steer inland, take a city street, and rejoin the waterfront at a later point.

As Mark Twain once said of golf: it's a great walk, spoiled.

"It's a drag; I'd like it not to happen," Stitzenberg said. "There are eight gaps along the walkway; most of them are under construction. Some are being blocked by private owners."

There ought to be a law

These spotty conditions have to do with an important state law, spottily followed.

Starting in 1988, Coastal Zone Management Rules, created by the state's Department of Environmental Protection, required builders erecting anything within 100 feet of the water to provide at least 30 feet of public space at the waterfront. In 1999, home builders challenged the law. It was upheld by a federal judge: the public, he declared, must have access to the water.

But meanwhile, each town has its own zoning rules. And private land (much of the walkway's length is controlled by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey) is grandfathered in. Owners must provide access to the water, but no more. They're not obligated to provide a true recreational space for the public until the property is redeveloped, or repurposed.

Hence the irregularity in conditions.

"We'd like to have it all under one jurisdiction, so we have uniformity of maintenance, and repair of the walkway, and amenities such as rest rooms and cafés," said Ronald Klempner, an Edgewater resident who has been part of the conservancy since 2013. "Very similar to what they've done in New York, where it's been very successful."

Why a seamless 18-mile promenade? Other than mere flow, continuity?

It would be a boon, of course, to bikers and joggers. But there's more. A walk down Jersey's waterfront, we discovered, is a trip into time — and into some of the odd byways of Garden State history.

Parrots, for instance.

History's mysteries

Edgewater's stretch of the walkway runs beneath the nests of the town's famous feral parrots — or parakeets, depending on whether you consider the critters to be Monk Parakeets or Quaker Parrots (they're called both).

In any event, they've been nesting in telephone poles for decades — to the delight of residents and the annoyance of PSE&G. "A while ago, someone must have released a parrot," Stitzenberg remarked. "They like Edgewater, and seem to go nowhere else."

Or another example, many miles further down. In Weehawken's portion of the waterfront, masts of drowned sailboats can be seen sticking forlornly out of the water. A souvenir of Sandy. "Hurricane Sandy sunk the boats, and they were abandoned," Stitzenberg said. "There's no jurisdiction here, and no responsibility, so no one knows who owns them."

All along the waterfront, there are the remains of piers — some intact and crumbling, some just wooden piles sticking up out of the river, perches for gulls.

"At low tide you see much more of it — we're at high tide now," said Stitzenberg, pointing to one. "These are remnants of an older time, when ferries were the only way to get materials into Manhattan."

That was in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the era of ships, wharves and warehouses — a time before bridges, when ferries brought tens of thousands of commuters into and out of Manhattan each day, and great cargo ships tied up onto slips, to be loaded and unloaded by swarms of longshoremen. The time when the waterfront was a vital, but unsightly, part of the economy. The time of "On the Waterfront."

"It's hard to imagine this, 100 years ago," Stitzenberg said. "You would have found ferries, docks, railyards, warehouses, dockworkers — a grimy, gritty, commercial operation used to provision Manhattan."

Looking to the future

Gone now — though ghosts linger. Meanwhile, new amenities spring up, as the waterfront transitions into a tourist attraction, and a coveted residential area. "The gold coast," realtors have dubbed it.

In Edgewater's Veteran's Park, there is a whole outdoor gym that can be used by anyone — not just a few chin-up bars, but a whole array of stationary bicycles and elliptical walkers. In Weehawken, there are bike and scooter rentals (we saw lots of people using both).

And there are plenty of landmarks: from Weehawken's stark 9/11 memorial on the waterfront (it's a couple of girders from the Twin Towers), to the striking Hoboken train terminal dating back to 1907, to the iconic Colgate clock in Jersey City, to Liberty State Park, with its science center and views of Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty.

And always, there are the skyscrapers — towering, gleaming, beckoning Jerseyans across the river to the Land of Oz.

There's so much there, Stitzenberg believes. It's just waiting for the unifying magic that will bring it all together.

"When the walkway is complete, the recreational opportunities will be unmatched in the Northeast," Stitzenberg said. With luck, he says, the last piece of the puzzle will be in place in 2024.

"I'm more than hopeful this will happen," he said. "I expect this to happen."

Access granted

Technically, the Hudson River Walkway can be accessed anywhere along its 18 mile length.

But some places are easier than others — and there is also the issue of parking. For the uninitiated, Stitzenberg suggests a couple of easy access points.

♦Edgewater Commons Shopping Center. Address: 555 New River Road, Edgewater.

♦Edgewater Harbor Shopping Center. Address: 15 Somerset Lane, Edgewater. Walk south along the newest area of the walkway.

♦Port Imperial, Weehawken. Address: 4800 Ave at Port Imperial, Weehawken. This is about mid-point on the route; walk south to the Weehawken 9/11 memorial.

♦River Street, Hoboken. Address: 333 River Street, Hoboken. Visit the parks on Pier A and C; walk south on the walkway through Hoboken Train Station into Jersey City.

♦Exchange Place, Jersey City. Address: 10 Exchange Place, Jersey City. Best place to view the World Trade Center, also a short distance south to Veteran's Park and the Colgate Clock.

♦Liberty State Park, Jersey City. Address: 200 Morris Pesin Drive, Jersey City, This it the place to see the New Jersey 9/11 Memorial, the Liberty Science Center, and get good views of the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.

Email: beckerman@northjersey.com; Twitter: @jimbeckerman1