The neighborhood is located west of Paulus Hook and Marin Boulevard, north of Grand Street, east of the Turnpike Extension, and south of The Village and Christopher Columbus Drive.

[4] The name Van Vorst comes from a prominent family in the area, the first of which arrived in the 1630s as superintendent of the patroonship Pavonia, the earliest European settlement on the west bank of the Hudson River in the province of New Netherland.

His namesake and eighth generation descendant, Cornelius Van Vorst, was the twelfth Mayor of Jersey City serving from 1860 to 1862.

[5][6] Like Harsimus Cove and Hamilton Park to the north and Bergen-Lafayette to the southwest, the neighborhood contains nineteenth century rowhouses and brownstones.

[7] It is home to the Jersey City Free Public Library, James J. Ferris High School (named for the Jersey City citizen who laid the foundation of the Hudson and Manhattan Railroad Powerhouse with his firm Stillman, Delehanty and Ferris),[8][9] and Old Colony Shopping Plaza.