"The Golden Door Mini-Golf Course" at the Hamilton Square in Downtown Jersey City is a fundraiser for the Jersey City Museum and will be open from June 24 to Labor Day.
It's not unusual for a person walking down McWilliams Place in Jersey City to stop and ask a carpenter or artist what's going on at the empty lot in Hamilton Square.
The space served as a temporary park until Hamilton Park reopened last month. Now it's being transformed into something quite different: a mini-golf course, designed and constructed by artists, that will raise money for the cash-strapped Jersey City Museum.
"We wanted to create a perfect marriage between art and mini-golf," exhibition curator Christina Vassallo said.
Don't expect a great score on this course. Some are downright impossible to make, but that's the beauty of it, Vassallo said.
"The Golden Door Mini-Golf Course" represents Jersey City serving as America's Golden Door when immigrants came through Ellis Island from 1892 to 1954. Each hole is a take on that theme.
Artist Kai Vierstra's hole, "The Sneek Snake," was inspired by his grandfather who came from the Netherlands. Putters must get their ball over a bridge or risk being washed away in a "sea of tears," which he said represents the struggle Vierstra's family went through to come to the U.S.
Hiroshi Kumagai's hole, "The Long Narrow Way to Heaven," represents his own 10-year struggle to immigrate from Japan and get his green card.
Jersey City artist Nyugen Smith said his hole, "The Glass Ceiling," represents the obstacles immigrants face when trying to achieve the American Dream. Like immigrants, putters will have to work extra hard to be successful at his hole.
The final hole on the course, "Leap of Faith," by Brooklyn artist Risa Puno, who helped design the exhibition, is inspired by skee-ball.
Golfers will putt into a loop-de-loop, launching their golf balls forward with the possibility of landing in one of three rings, each knocking off a different number of points off the player's score.
"When you're immigrating, you're taking a leap of faith," Puno said. "I wanted it to be less skill-based and more just going for it."
The course -- sponsored by Hamilton Square developers Paul and Eric Silverman, Congressman Frank Guarini the New York Foundation for the Arts and Liberty National Golf Course in Jersey City -- opens 6 p.m. Wednesday with a $75 per person fund-raiser. The goal is to raise $100,000 for the Jersey City Museum.
The course will be open to the public daily from 10 a.m. to dusk through Labor Day. A round will cost $5 per person, $4 for Jersey City Museum members.