1920 Sanborn Map of Central & Railroad Avenue

[just watching]

I found this map online.  It's a Sanborn map from 1920. It shows an entire business district that once existed on Central Ave just EAST of Railroad Ave, and spilling onto Railroad Ave, also east of the railroad.  I had never even known that it existed.  I knew there was a train station there, but had no idea there was an associated business district

Businesses here in 1920 on East Railroad ave just north of Central Ave included a press shop, a shoe shop, and a wholesale grocery. Businesses on Central Ave just east of the railroad in 1920 included a larger Grocery store on the corner, a butcher (meat), and a good size bakery shop with large ovens in the rear.  It's all been torn down.  Also torn down were 9 houses that appear to have been 1 or 2-family houses, and two houses on railroad ave labeled by Sanborn as "tenements". The south side of Central Ave (east of railroad Ave) is not shown on the map, but there were a few businesses there as well, in addition to all the houses still standing.

It would appear as if this entire business district and all the houses and tenements were simply torn down sometime after 1920, and replaced with an industrial complex that most recently housed a lightbulb factory.  This in turn was torn down a few years ago and replaced with a modern self-storage facility with nice landscaping around it.  There is really some amazing history associated with that self-storage property. 

Also, of note, the former lightbulb factory rented a large unpaved parking lot at the NW corner of Clay & Railroad Ave, where there was another cluster of buildings since demolished. Sanborn notes them as a large "vacant" commercial building on the corner, a grocery store, a duplex, a single family house, an d another building marked "tenements".  The 1915 Sanborn map of the same area shows much more retail west of the railroad than existed in 1920, and the vacant commercial building at Clay & Railroad was "Hackensack Speciality Manufacturers" which made tweezers, fire apparatus, etc. Going even further back to the 1908 Sanborn map, it shows west of the railroad a barber, a vacant store, a stone yard/shed, a confectionary store, a restaurant, a cobbler, and a grocer, but Hackensack Speciality wasn't built. 

Further west on Central Ave in 1908 was another cobbler, a paint shop, and a cabinet shop, some houses still standing, and almost half of the block was vacant land.

If any older folks can shed some light on the demolition of the original business district to make the large industrial building since demolished, that would be great.  Was this done by the private sector, or by the governing body ? Did this happen because the train station was removed ?  This is all new to me, and very interesting.


http://gisserver.princeton.edu:81/navigatorMapViewer.htm?map=9280

[irons35]

the whole city is on that server.  simply add or subtract one number from the last digit in the URL and you will see more maps.

[Editor]

Here's the index page for the Hackensack Sanborn maps: http://libweb5.princeton.edu/visual_materials/maps/sanborn/bergen/hackensack.html

Good find. Thanks. I was able to determine that our home was built between 1908 (where it's not shown) and 1915 (where it is shown). 

I also linked to the maps from the Historic Resources page.

[just watching]

Glad to have helped, and yes, most of the older areas of Hackensack are on that server.

[Editor]

I put together this short video showing the transition of the courthouse area from 1880-1920.  This didn't have quite the effect I hoped it would, but it's still sort of interesting.  It would me more interesting if additional map-years were available.

You may want to enlarge the screen and pause between frames.