In Bayonne, the Tree Lightings Are Built to Walk You Into the Shops

Last December, the prize at the Bergen Point Tree Lighting went to people who had walked into stores. You picked up a passport at Little Boho Bookshop and got a stamp at every participating Bergen Point shop, no purchase necessary. Then you dropped the finished passport in Santa's Mailbox at the bookshop by 4 p.m. on December 13. Completed passports went into a drawing for more than $700 in gifts and gift certificates from Bergen Point businesses, as TAPinto Bayonne reported.

That passport shows how Bayonne runs the holidays. Its two tree lightings sit on Broadway's two shopping stretches, and each one leaves you at a shop's front door. The city calendar lists the UEZ Holiday Tree Lighting for Tuesday, December 1, 2026, and the Bergen Point Tree Lighting for Friday, December 11, 2026. Both dates are a few weeks out from today. What the events offered last year shows what they are for.

The Bergen Point Lighting Starts at a Church and Sends You Into Shops

The 2025 Bergen Point lighting was at Trinity Parish, on Broadway at 5th Street, and started at 5 p.m. First Ward Councilman Neil Carroll invited the community, according to TAPinto Bayonne. The invitation came from the councilman for this end of Broadway, and the event centers on the businesses within a few blocks of the church.

Last year those businesses were connected through Little Boho Bookshop at 164 Broadway, between 4th and 5th Streets. Sandra Dear founded the shop in 2017, TAPinto Bayonne reported. In 2025 it was the passport hub, handing out the passports and holding Santa's Mailbox for finished ones. Because of that setup, the tree lighting worked more like a walking tour of the shopping district that ends with a lit tree.

The blocks around Trinity Parish make that walk easy. Here is a short loop from the church that stays in Bergen Point:

1. Trinity Parish, Broadway at 5th Street, where the 2025 tree was lit.
2. Little Boho Bookshop, 164 Broadway, between 4th and 5th Streets.
3. Bake N' Brew, 164 B Broadway, a café Visit Hudson lists with food service.
4. Stephanie Petersen Photography, 196 Broadway.
5. Union Grounds Coffee House, 199 Broadway, a Bergen Point café that Bayonne Pulse profiled as the business William and Gabriella built after meeting in a coffee shop.

The photographer at stop four also links the two lightings, which comes up again in the next section.

Fourteen Blocks North, the UEZ Does the Same Thing With a Gift Guide

The other lighting belongs to the Bayonne Urban Enterprise Zone/Special Improvement District. In 2025 the UEZ/SID held its ceremony on a Tuesday evening at 5:30 p.m. at Lance Corporal Stanley Kopcinski Park on Broadway, TAPinto Bayonne reported. According to the city's announcement, the park is on Broadway in front of the 19 East building. Broadway was closed from 19th Street, also signed Vinny Bottino Way, to 20th Street for the event.

The 2025 program was full:

• Performances by The Artists' Avenue, the Bayonne High School Jazz Band, the Kids' Piano Studio and the Robinson School Band, ending with Santa lighting the tree
• Free photos with Santa until 7 p.m., taken by Stephanie Petersen Photography and posted afterward on the UEZ Facebook page
• A gift for each child, provided by Second Ward Councilwoman Jacqueline Weimmer
• Free cocoa and cookies while supplies lasted, trackless train rides and a mechanical reindeer
• Copies of the 2025 UEZ Holiday Gift Guide

The last item on that list is the same idea as the Bergen Point passport, in printed form. The gift guide went home with families along with the cocoa. Before last year's event, UEZ Coordinator Jacqueline Farber explained its purpose in plain terms, as quoted by TAPinto Bayonne:

"As the holiday season approaches, the UEZ is happy to remind everyone that Bayonne is a wonderful place to shop and work."

The city still lists Farber as UEZ Coordinator. The office is at 630 Avenue C.

The UEZ name also explains the event's focus on shopping. Under New Jersey's Urban Enterprise Zone program, certified UEZ sellers may charge half the state sales tax rate on qualifying sales of taxable goods. The New Jersey Division of Taxation currently lists that reduced rate as 3.3125%. The rate applies only to certified sellers and qualifying purchases, not to every register on Broadway. The state's page is the place to check how it works. This is general information, not tax advice, so confirm how it applies to a particular purchase or business with a tax professional.

Stephanie Petersen Photography, at 196 Broadway in Bergen Point, took the Santa photos at the uptown UEZ event. So one Broadway business worked at the north lighting while sitting a few doors from the south one.

How the December Calendar Lines Up Along Broadway

Each lighting covers its own section of Broadway, and the parade covered all of it. The city's 2025 notice set the route from 1st Street to 55th Street, starting at noon, with floats, Santa, Mrs. Claus and surprise guests. That route passes Trinity Parish at 5th Street, Kopcinski Park at 19th Street and nearly every storefront between them.

The First December Without Barney Stock at 499 Broadway

The storefronts carry more weight this season. Barney Stock Shops at 499 Broadway closed on Saturday, October 3, after 104 years in business, TAPinto Bayonne reported. Mayor Sharon Ashe-Nadrowski proclaimed that day Barney Stock Shops Day. She said that "generations of Bayonne residents have shopped and worked there."

The River View Observer traced the store's history. Barney Stock opened his first shop on Avenue C in 1922, then moved to 499 Broadway with his partner Phil Glass. The business grew to six stores across Bayonne, Jersey City and Union City. Mel Stock, the founder's son, ran it for almost 50 years before retiring this fall. "The relationships we have had with our staff and generations of our customers are what I am most proud of," he told the paper.

This is also the first holiday season under Ashe-Nadrowski, whom Hudson County View reported as the first woman elected mayor in Bayonne's history after the May election. The city scheduled inauguration ceremonies for July 1, 2026. Last year's UEZ lighting was promoted under the previous administration. The December 1 lighting will be the new mayor's first Broadway tree.

Some long-running names are still on the street. Piero's Music at 942 Broadway dates to 1952. The Fumento family now owns it and reopened it in 2018 after a period when it was closed. That return is the kind of storefront story the gift guide and the passport are meant to support. Both programs invite people into shops on an evening built around something free, and they treat a cup of cocoa and a stamped card as the start of a shopping habit.

With 499 Broadway now empty, the two December lightings look less like decorations and more like Broadway's main pitch for the season. They give Bayonne residents a reason to come out to Broadway on a cold weeknight, at 5th Street on one evening and at 19th Street on another.

When you're walking Broadway this December, from the Bergen Point blocks near Trinity Parish to the stretch around Kopcinski Park, you are seeing the street the way Alena Ciccarelli Properties sees it: one storefront at a time. If you'd like to talk about a home within walking distance of either tree, Arrange a Viewing with us and we'll walk the blocks together.