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Park - Fort Lee - Edgewater - New Jersey... cliffsideparkcosmeticdent... | Park - Fort Lee - Edgewater - New Jersey... cliffsideparktmjdentist.c... |
Edgewater is a borough located along the Hudson River in Bergen County, New Jersey. Its history has featured the founding of the first colony in Bergen County, contribution to the Revolutionary War, a period as a "sleepy, pastoral little town"[8] with resort hotels in the 1800s;[9] industrialization in the early 19th century and transition to residential community in the late 19th century. As of the 2007 Census estimate, the borough had a population of 9,582.[4] Edgewater was originally formed on December 7, 1894, from portions of Ridgefield Township as the Borough of Undercliff, at the height of the "Boroughitis" phenomenon then sweeping through Bergen County. The name was changed to Edgewater on November 8, 1899.[10][11]
[edit] GeographyCoordinates are 40°49′48″N 73°58′26″W / 40.829893°N 73.973911°W (40.829893, -73.973911).[12]  Edgewater is a narrow strip of land in Bergen County lying along the Hudson River, as shown in the Census map, with 3.5 miles of waterfront.[13] The Palisades Cliff rises dramatically and forms a natural border on its western side, running roughly parallel to the Hudson. The towns atop the cliff are Fort Lee and Cliffside Park, north and south, respectively. Edgewater abuts Fort Lee Historic Park in the town of Fort Lee on the north. On the south it shares a border with the town of North Bergen, which lies in Hudson County. River Road runs into and out of the town from the north and south, lying just above the level of the Hudson. Only three roads lead up the Palisades Cliff. Route 5, with one switchback, ascends to Palisades Avenue, which leads north into Fort Lee and south into Cliffside Park. Gorge Road and Edgewater Road, the latter still referred to by many local residents by its Colonial-era name as Oxen Hill Road, lead up the Palisades to Cliffside Park. According to the United States Census Bureau, the borough has a total area of 2.4 square miles (6.3 km2), of which, 0.9 square miles (2.2 km2) of it is land and 1.6 square miles (4.1 km2) of it (64.88%) is water. [edit] Demographics
As of the 2000 census[5], there were 7,677 people, 3,836 households, and 1,971 families residing in the borough. The population density was 9,060.6 people per square mile (3,487.2/km2). There were 4,277 housing units at an average density of 5,047.8/sq mi (1,942.8/km2). As of the 2000 census, the racial makeup of the borough was 67.12% White, 10.45% Hispanic or Latino of any race, 3.52% African American, 0.21% Native American, 23.12% Asian, 0.04% Pacific Islander, 2.94% from other races, and 3.05% from two or more races. 11.83% of Edgewater's residents identified themselves as being of Korean ancestry, which was the ninth highest in the United States and seventh highest of any municipality in New Jersey, for all places with 1,000 or more residents identifying their ancestry.[16] 3.22% of residents identified themselves as being of Japanese ancestry, which was the third highest of any municipality in New Jersey, behind Fort Lee (6.09%) and Demarest (3.72%).[17] There were 3,836 households out of which 20.0% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 40.0% were married couples living together, 8.4% had a female householder with no husband present, and 48.6% were non-families. 39.1% of all households were made up of individuals and 6.3% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.00 and the average family size was 2.70. In the borough the population was spread out with 15.4% under the age of 18, 5.3% from 18 to 24, 46.7% from 25 to 44, 23.6% from 45 to 64, and 8.9% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 36 years. For every 100 females there were 94.9 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 92.9 males. The median income for a household in the borough was $63,455, and the median income for a family was $72,692. Males had a median income of $50,795 versus $49,238 for females. The per capita income for the borough was $42,650. About 6.2% of families and 8.6% of the population were below the poverty line, including 16.5% of those under age 18 and 13.6% of those age 65 or over. [edit] Government[edit] Local government Edgewater is governed under the Borough form of New Jersey municipal government. The government consists of a Mayor and a Borough Council comprising six council members, with all positions elected at large. A Mayor is elected directly by the voters to a four-year term of office. The Borough Council consists of six members elected to serve three-year terms on a staggered basis, with two seats coming up for election each year.[1][18] The Mayor of Edgewater is Agnes "Nancy" Merse (D), whose term expires on December 31, 2011. Members of the Borough Council are Council President Juanita "Neda" Rose (D; 2009), James Delaney (D; 2009), Denis Gallagher (I; 2008), David Jordan (D; 2010), Beatrice M. Robbio (I; 2008) and David Weschler (I; 2010).[2][19] In September 2008, the Independent Coalition for a Better Edgewater announced that it was withdrawing incumbent Beatrice Robbio newcomer Christina Zitis from the 2008 race, citing the difficulty of a third party to draw voter attention and get elected in a presidential-election year.[20] In the 2008 General Election, Democrats Maureen Holtje (2,014 votes) and Jose Luis Vidal (2,007) won election to three-year terms for the two vacant seats, defeating Republicans Ayelet A. Weiss (979) and Bart J. Talamini (925).[21] In elections held on November 6, 2007, voters filled a four-year term for mayor and two three-year seats on the Borough Council. Incumbent Democratic Mayor Agnes "Nancy" Merse (861 votes) won re-election to a second term in office, defeating Independent Valory T. Bardinas (803), a former councilmember. In the council race, Democrat David B. Jordan (815) won re-election and Independent David W. Weschler (796) won a first term, outrunning Democratic incumbent Maureen Holtje (760), Independent Mary C. Hogan (742) and Republican Ayelet Ann Weiss (147). The 2008 council taking office in January will be split evenly between Democrats and Independents, with the Democratic Party mayor having a tiebreaking vote.[22][23] On Election Day, November 7, 2006, in the race for two three-year seats on the Borough Council, Democratic Party newcomer James Delaney (1,224 votes) obtained his first term on the Council, followed by Democratic incumbent Neda Rose (1,180) who earned her fifth term in office. Independent incumbent Valory Bardinas was in third (1,134), falling short in her bid for re-election to a third term, and fellow Independent Mary Hogan came in fourth (1,123) in her attempt for office after previously serving three terms on the Council. Delaney's victory gives the Democrats control of the Council by a 4-2 margin, breaking a 3-3 deadlock.[24][25][26] [edit] Federal, state and county representation New Jersey's Ninth Congressional District, covering the southern portion of Bergen County and sections of Hudson County and Passaic County, is represented by Steve Rothman (D, Fair Lawn). New Jersey is represented in the Senate by Frank Lautenberg (D, Cliffside Park) and Bob Menendez (D, Hoboken). For the 2008-2009 Legislative Session, the 38th District of the New Jersey Legislature is represented in the State Senate by Robert M. Gordon (D, Fair Lawn) and in the Assembly by Joan Voss (D, Fort Lee) and Connie Wagner (D, Paramus).[27] The Governor of New Jersey is Jon Corzine (D, Hoboken).[28] Bergen County's County Executive is Dennis McNerney (D).[29] The executive, along with the seven-member Board of Chosen Freeholders administer all county business. As of 2008[update], Bergen County's Freeholders are Chairman James M. Carroll (D, Demarest), Vice-Chairwoman Julie O'Brien (D, Ramsey), Elizabeth Calabrese (D, Wallington), David L. Ganz (D, Fair Lawn), Bernadette P. McPherson (D, Rutherford), Tomas J. Padilla (D, Park Ridge) and Vernon Walton (D, Englewood).[30] Other countywide elected officials are Sheriff Leo McGuire (D), Surrogate Court Judge Mike Dressler (D, Cresskill) and County Clerk Kathleen Donovan (R, Rutherford).[31] [edit] Politics As of Election Day, November 4, 2008, there were 4,471 registered voters. Of registered voters, 2,222 (49.7% of all registered voters) were registered as Democrats, 454 (10.2%) were registered as Republicans and 1,794 (40.1%) were registered as Undeclared. There was one voters registered to other parties.[32] On the national level, Edgewater leans very strongly towards the Democratic Party. In the 2008 presidential election, Democrat Barack Obama received 67.9% of the vote here, defeating Republican John McCain, who received 31.1% of the vote, with 81.7% of registered voters participating.[32] In the 2004 election, Democrat John Kerry received 65% of the vote here, defeating Republican George W. Bush, who received around 34%.[33] On the local level, Edgewater has its own two-party system, split between the Democratic Party and the Independent Coalition for a Better Edgewater. The Republican Party has minimal presence and doesn't always run a slate in local elections. The perennial local political issue is managing growth. [edit] Education The Edgewater Public Schools serves public school students in Kindergarten through sixth grade. Eleanor Van Gelder School,the lone school in the district, had an enrollment of 421 students in the 2005-06 school year.[34] For grades 7 - 12, public school students are sent to the Leonia Public Schools as part of a sending/receiving relationship.[35] Students attend Leonia Middle School for grades 7 and 8 (a school with a total of 443 students in grades 6 - 8), and Leonia High School which has had 630 students in grades 9 - 12, all as of 2005-06.[36] [edit] Other features [edit] Veteran's Field22-acre Veterans' Field[37] offers residents recreational opportunities and provides space for a Community Center and American Legion Post 116. Veterans' Field is located on River Road (County Route 505) in the north section of Edgewater, lying along the Hudson River. It has indoor and outdoor basketball courts, three softball fields, a 1/3 mile-long track which accommodates runners, walkers and skaters; tennis courts, a Little League field and a playground. It is also the site of a large American flag which can be seen easily from across the river in Manhattan. A plaque commemorating the New Netherland plantation of David Pietersen de Vries, Vriessendael, is located at the entrance to the field on the west. Although the field extends well to the east, it did not exist in de Vries's day. In 1922 landfill was imported from the construction site of Yankee Stadium in the Bronx,[37] which gives Veteran's Field its current dimensions.   [edit] Historic statusBoth Borough Hall and the Binghamton Ferry are listed on the National Register of Historic Places and the New Jersey Register of Historic Places.[38] The Binghamton Ferry, permanently anchored at the Binghamton Shopping Plaza, was built in 1904-1905 in Newport News, RI.[39] The only double-ended ferry boat still on the Hudson River, the Binghamton ferried passengers from New Jersey to Barclay Street in Manhattan for many years [40] and was retired in 1956.[41] In addition addition to Borough Hall and the Binghamton, the Eleanor Van Gelder School and Edgewater Free Library are listed on the New Jersey Register of Historic Places.[38][42] The last of 15 libraries in New Jersey[43] built with funds from the Carnegie Foundation,[42] the Edgewater Free Library was constructed in 1915 at a cost of $17,500.[44] Edgewater had opened its library in 1910, prior to the donation from the Carnegie Foundation, with 817 books on its shelves.[44] Appointment to the New Jersey Register of Historic Places qualifies the library for renovation funds and consideration for national historic status.[42] [edit] The River Walk The promenade along the Hudson is part of the Hudson River Waterfront Walkway. In 1988, construction of a waterfront walkway was mandated by state law that would allow walkers a path along the Hudson River from Bayonne up to the George Washington Bridge.[45] Although property owners were required to build and maintain it,[46] many gaps remain. Of the 18.5 miles called for, only 11 are complete, and many of the gaps occur in Edgewater.[45] Nevertheless, the completed stretches offer paths for walking along the Hudson River with views of Manhattan. [edit] Shopping opportunitiesEdgewater has 5 main shopping areas. From north to south they are Town Centre, the Binghamton Shopping Plaza, Mitsuwa Marketplace, Edgewater Commons and City Place. All are located on the river side of River Road and bordered by the River Walk. As recently as 1984 the town had no supermarket.[13] Now groceries may be purchased at Whole Foods Market in Town Centre, Trader Joe's at the Binghamton Plaza, Japanese labeled groceries at Mitsuwa, and at Pathmark in Edgewater Commons. Shuttle buses run daily from Manhattan, bringing Japanese shoppers to Mitsuwa, as well as those simply interested in Japanese products. [edit] Edgewater parrots Edgewater is the home of a free-flying colony of Monk Parakeets, also known as Quaker Parrots. These small, green parrots have lived in Edgewater since at least 1980 and were numbered at 200 to 230 in a 2008 New York Times article.[47] They are easily seen in Memorial Park and its vicinity at River Road and Route 5. The parrots build large nests of twigs and down which become permanent residences.[48] Nests four feet long can be seen near the intersection. How the birds came to Edgewater is unknown, though a widely accepted story traces their origin to an escape from a damaged crate at John F. Kennedy Airport in the 1960s.[47] The birds have built nests not only in trees, but also against transformers on utility poles. Citing the risk of fire, the utility PSE&G has destroyed such nests. This has brought the Utility into conflict with parrot advocates. As of 2008 PSE&G has agreed not to take down nests in breeding season.[47] [edit] Transportation New Jersey Transit buses include the 156, 158 and 159 routes serving the Port Authority Bus Terminal in Midtown Manhattan; the 188 to the George Washington Bridge Bus Terminal; and local service on the 751 and 755 routes.[49] There is also ferry service to Midtown Manhattan, offered by NY Waterways. The Edgewater terminal is located where Route 5 comes into River Road. Parking at the terminal is not allowed; however a shuttle bus operated by the borough is available to transport passengers to the ferry. At the Ferry Terminal in New York passengers can transfer free to various buses operated by New York Waterways. Several ferries operated in Edgewater in the past,[50] with the old Edgewater Ferry Terminal historically located about 100 yards from the current ferry terminal. The last ferry in the 20th century crossed the river in 1950.[37] The Borough was also site of the Trolley terminal for numerous electric lines in New Jersey.[51] Situated across River Road from the old Ferry Terminal, it met passengers arriving from Manhattan. Its service included transportation to the top of Palisades Cliff.[52] The trolley stopped running in 1938.[53] [edit] Edgewater then and nowNative American people are known to have lived in the vicinity before the arrival of colonists in the 1600s. The Lenni Lenape were a local tribe associated with the neighboring borough of Fort Lee,[54] and the first European settler bought 500 acres (202 ha) of land from the Tappan Indians. This colonist was David Pietersz Devries (also transliterated as David Pietersen de Vries), who established the settlement of Vriessendael in what is now Edgewater.[55] A historical plaque placed in Veteran's Field by the Bergen County Historical Society names Vriessendael as the first known colony in Bergen County with a founding date of 1640. Vriessendael was destroyed in 1643 in Kieft's War by Indians reacting to foolish actions by the Director General of the Dutch West India Company, who lived across the river in New Amsterdam, as Manhattan was then known.[56] In pioneer days, River Road was known as the Hackensack Turnpike,[57] and Ox [sic] Hill Road was an important route to the top of the Palisades Cliff.[51] While Oxen Hill Road still exists as a thoroughfare, another Colonial hallmark and major local industry[51] has only recently disappeared: shad fishing. The Undercliff section in the northern section of Edgewater was originally a colony of fishermen.[58] In the 1980s there were still about 100 commercial fishermen in New Jersey harvesting shad from their annual spring run from the Atlantic Ocean up the Hudson River to spawn. Now there are none.[39] Etienne Burdett began ferry service between north Edgewater and the island of Manhattan in 1758. His gambrel-roofed house in what is now the Edgewater Colony stood until 1899.[59] The ferry service at Burdett's Landing, which was located at the southern base of the bluff of Fort Lee, proved valuable to the American cause during the Revolutionary War. The ferry functioned as the link for supplies, information and transportation between Fort Lee on the New Jersey side of the Hudson River and Fort Washington on the New York side.[60] In the century following the Revolutionary war, north Edgewater developed into a resort area with large hotels built in the mid- and late 1800s.[9] It was in the 1800s that Burdett's Landing became known as "Old Stone Dock," as cobblestones quarried from the Palisades Cliffs by Russell & Read were shipped across the Hudson to fill the demand for paving Manhattan streets.[61] Concern over the destruction caused in quarrying led to the formation of the Palisades Interstate Park in 1900, which was effective in preserving the cliffs.[62] Although the first Chemical Plant was founded in 1843 in the south section of the borough,[63] throughout the 1800s the town retained a bucolic character.[61] Early in the 1900s the addition of landfill to the Hudson River changed the borough's appearance. Until that time, the Hudson River lay closer to River Road from just above Veteran's field southward to what is now the Binghamton Ferry Plaza.[64] The 20th century brought great change to Edgewater with industrialization, which overwhelmed the borough[65] and filled three miles of the shoreline with its operations. Transportation of factory goods was facilitated when the New York, Susquehanna & Western Railroad cut a tunnel through the Palisades in 1894 to connect the borough to its Jersey City line. [41] Edgewater was also well situated for shipping, with deep water piers on the Hudson River and access to abundant labor from Manhattan.[63] Generally, industrial development occurred in the southern end of the borough, while the northern end remained residential.[51] As industrialization increased in the borough, picnic grounds lost their appeal and resort hotels faded.[66] Among the industries that would prosper in the first half of the 20th century were Alcoa Aluminum, the Ford Motor Company, Lever Brothers, Valvoline Oil Co. and Archer-Daniels-Midland.[63][67] Railroad trains served various factories, traversing tracks laid in River Road.[65] During the first 30 years of the century Edgewater's population quadrupled, and the transient workforce increased tenfold.[68] Eventually the factories closed. The reasons were varied, but they included the globalization of industry, obsolete facilities[63] and the replacement of railroad shipping by trucking,[39] which could not run its large tractor trailer trucks on Edgewater's narrow streets.[41]   The late 20th century history of Edgewater was one of change from an industrialized town to a residential one. With the closing of the factories, development came to Edgewater[69] beginning in the 1960s.[70] As condominiums were built along the Hudson where industry had formerly operated,[71] the population of Edgewater grew rapidly. As seen in the population box on this page, it had remained mostly in the 4,000 to 5,000 range from 1930 to 1990. According to estimates from 2007, the population has roughly doubled. City council members and residents acknowledge the problem of increased traffic.[37][41] Crime statistics are down[41] and real estate values are up. Because of the expense of buying property, some currently refer to Edgewater as the Gold Coast.[63] A photographic history of Edgewater describes the population and demographics change and its possible consequence this way:
Although the borough is unrecognizable as the industrial town it once was, growing pains have left marks. When the old Alcoa plant site from 1916 began to be converted to condominiums, construction was forced to halt for cleanup of industrial contaminants, including excessively high concentrations of PCB’s. [41] In another case, construction of a condominium/shopping center in south Edgewater was interrupted for six months by safety measures to protect workers from chemical exposure in the lead- and arsenic-riddled soil.[37] Next to this structure, behind a chain link fence lies a Superfund site.[63] Operational Hess Oil tanks beside the derelict Alcoa rolling mill, once the second largest in the world,[72] stand as a reminder of the borough's industrial phase. [edit] Notable residentsNotable current and former residents of Edgewater include:
[edit] Edgewater images(click images to enlarge)
[edit] Sources
[edit] References
[edit] External links
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