Wow, I remember that article. Great post.
And I remember in the mid-1970's, Anderson Street being one antique store after another, and some on Linden Street. The area around the Anderson Park was considered a better neighborhood than the vicinity of Linden Street and the old Acme, especially the houses on Linden at and near Passaic Street. Those were torn down in the early 1980's, and a few years later a condo built.
The antiques came from estate sales not just from the hill, but from older houses on Park and Union Street, Anderson, Clinton, etc., and probably the majority from the surrounding towns within a 5 mile radius. It really was the ANTIQUE HUB of Bergen County.
The city was dead-set against them, and the zoning code didn't allow them. But they brought in a clientelle from all around Bergen County, a lot of middle-aged and elderly people looking to buy, or to sell, what they owned. The whole idea was to browse from store to store, that's how 17 antique stores thrived despite what you might think was too much competition. Once the business district was down to only 6 or 8 antique stores, the whole mass of people stopped coming. I remember people talking about how the buyers just stopped coming. The antique hub concept failed, and the remaining stores couldn't survive. And the stores replacing them certainly weren't any better.
