My parents were originally from your area then. My mother grew up in Brooklyn, and my father grew up in Moonachie, New Jersey, close to Teterboro airport. Memory of the Black Tom explosion helped to prompt the internment of Japanese and other enemy aliens during WW II.
Moonachie in particular isn’t far from the site (which like Moonachie, also borders on the Meadowlands).
Because of those acts, a small rail bridge in my town had a small troop of soldiers guarding it. The little stationhouse, unused but still standing when I was younger (1970s), is now gone but the foundation is still visible.
The US had a real dilemna in WWI; there were a lot of German-Americans (and Americans themselves) who didn’t want the US to fight in that war. In fact, one of the towns near Moonachie is “Carlstadt”, a recognition of the number of Germans in the area.