Hackensack, NJ Community Message Boards

The original author didn't say where she lived, and when was the last time returned to Hackensack.  There are only four (that's right, 3) of the original houses left on the entire mile-long length of Prospect Ave from Essex to Passaic.  The most authentic is on the SW corner of Golf Place and Prospect, I used to tell my daughter that was Cinderella's house.  Two more are on Prospect at the SW corner of Berry Street (both converted to office use), and one more that is 2 doors south is still standing but owned by investors hoping to build a huge nursing home.  The rest of the street is redeveloped, mostly for magnificient high-rises. Like Manhattan with front lawns. Several of them are very affluent, and have brought great prestige to the city.  The "hospital" is now one of the largest in the nation, now called Hackensack University Medical Center.  www.humc.org ?  It is monstrous and still gobbling up land.  The city has directed all future hospital growth EAST, towards Railroad Ave.

Let's set the record straight on the history of Prospect Ave. None of the houses on Prospect Ave were built before 1880, and most probably 1890 -1910.  It was a group of wealthy realtors from NYC who bought up all the land on Prospect Ave, and built estates to be served by the Prospect Ave rail station (established around 1880 ?) and the Hackensack Golf Club.  There's documentation about all that somewhere on this website, and in other printed sources. Sorry to throw water on the idea of the mansions predating the civil war. Try State or Union Street for houses that old, if you are lucky.  In 1880, there was nothing on Prospect Ave except the massive 3-story Jewelry factory and several squalid tenement houses for the workers. This was clustered at the SW corner of Prospect and Berry.  These structures appear on 1876 and 1898 maps of the city, and they were known to historian George Scudder.  The rest of the street was pasture and woodlands, and perhaps a few small houses.  Luxury houses started to be built on Prospect Ave around Central Ave (near the train station), and slowly worked northwards over several decades. At some point, the Jewelry factory and the tenements were forced off the hill, exact date is yet to be determined, so that more luxury houses could be built on that stretch of the street.

The 7-acre Brewster estate is now occupied by three high rises (World Plaza north, World Plaza South, Prospect Towers), and a 5-story building on Third Street.  All the buildings have vehicular and pedestrian access ONLY to Prospect Ave.   I guess there is over 500 units where one estate used to stand.

The very first high-rise built on Prospect Ave replaced the Packard's house, it is called the WhiteHall. Built in 1965.  Actually the Executive House on Beech Street predates the WhiteHall, but it's "off Prospect".  All of Summit Avenue is still houses north of Beech Street.  Some of them are nice, but don't rival the best of Prospect Ave.  Preserving the zoning of Summit Ave remains very high on the list of political priorities in Hackensack.  City hall knows that thousands of condo and apartment residents on Prospect would hire attorneys and protest any loss of their view, so it is safe to say that high-rises will never spread to Summit Ave.

The Borg family moved to 655 Summit Ave. I believe Donald Borg died in 1975.  Following family tradition, his son Malcolm attempted to build a large multi-unit complex in the woodlands they owned stretching from the Maywood border to the rear of their Summit Ave house.  They were defeated, and the 15 acres is now the Borg's Woods Nature Preserve, owned by the County.

You would still recognize Fairmount Ave.  There is a few new buildings east of Grand Ave, all the houses further west still stand.

Wickersheim's descendants are still active in Hackensack, they own a plumbing business. Involved in PTA's as well.  A few years back, they were denied a request to the Zoning Board to construct a large contractor's garage in a residential neighborhood.  A lot of the older families no longer live in the city, and the demographics has changed greatly.  Hackensack looks like the United Nations. That's OK since there isn't a situation of one group taking over the city. Give the Wickersheim's some credit for sticking around.

I think Arnold Constable closed the same year that the Bergen Mall was converted from open-air to an enclosed "true mall".  Was it 1971 ?  I was a kid at the time, but all the talk around town was that those two events marked a big shift in where people would shop.  How true. I think that was also the same year that Temple Beth-El moved from State Street to Summit Ave, which was another bellweather event that had a big long-term impact.

1971 was when Main Street really started to decline as a commercial center. I think the enclosure of the Bergen Mall (followed by the opening of Paramus Park in 1974) hurt Main Street as much or more than the initial construction of the Garden State Plaza and the Bergen Mall (as open-air malls) in the mid-1950's.

Looks like the historic Bakman Building (formerly the Susquehanna Hotel) is getting a complete rehab, generally to historic standards.  They are repointing the brick, and all the intricate soffits, chocks, and trimwork below the roofline of the 3-story building is being repainted - green.  Not sure what they are doing with the storefronts.  The south wall is nearing completion, and the difference is shocking.

Also, yesterday was opening day for LIMON, which is downtown's version of Whole Foods. This is a really upscale place, exactly what is needed for downtown Hackensack.  They say it is their first store, and an entire chain of Limon's will be launched !!!  Limon takes the place of another ikon, Prozy's, which closed a few years ago (Spring 2005 ?).  Remember the Record headline "There goes Prozy's".

This is the type of store that will give all the health-conscious residents of Prospect and Overlook Avenues the excuse to come into downtown Hackensack. This is our version of Whole Foods, right here in Hackensack.

The city of Hackensack gave Limon's a warm welcome.....NOT. Instead, Constable Norm Levin was there, and he gave them a citation for passing out "Grand Opening" flyers.  Let me say sarcastically, "Nice work, Norm."  I don't care if it is technically against the law; there are times when the Constable should make sure his eyeballs are pointing in a different direction.

He has clarified that my inquiry is false.    He is not selling off his collection, much as it might seem to the outside person who does not actually click onto eBay.  Most of the sellers are from out of state.

AGAIN, I REPEAT MY INQUIRY:

You are frequently posting a lot of Hackensack things for sale on eBay   Could it be that you are constantly searching eBay for Hackensack relics?  Or, here's another plausible scenario: YOU have a huge collection of Hackensack artifacts and photos, and YOU are selling them off.

If so, maybe the City of Hackensack should find a few dollars in their budget and make you an offer for EVERYTHING you want to sell.  These artifacts should be stored by Hackensack's official historian.  Eventually the City of Hackensack WILL have it's own museum.

As much as we'd like to see it happen, Hackensack's current historian can't push for a museum due to a personal conflict of interest.  So there's no point in asking him to do so.  However, at some point the city will have it's own museum.  The city needs to start stockpiling important relics.  To see key Hackensack artifacts and relics distributed into private hands via eBay sales is an absolute travesty.  It looks like this is what is happening.

Or maybe you, Mr. Liefe, should keep all your stuff until the city decides to buy it all.  And leave it in your will to the City of Hackensack, to be managed by the city's historian, should something happen to you first.

Yes, my last guess was correct.  I visited the neighborhood and photo-documented various houses still standing from the 1900 photos.
In “NE View”, the house on the left is 283 Berry Street.  It has been so heavily renovated and improved that I first thought it was a newer house on the same lot.  It  now has a rear addition, an enclosed front porch, and the roof has been totally reframed and reshaped. Some windows have been sealed up and others added.  But the 3 large second floor windows and the square shape give it away.  That’s the house, for sure. A neighbor confirmed that a small second floor window was sealed up some years back. He found the photos amazing.
The house in the right forefront of “NE View” was torn down about 3 months ago.  It was on James Street facing the end of Third Street.  A new duplex is under construction.  I have a picture of the old house from 1990 in my files (a pure coincidence).  I can copy and send to the Editor, if he desires. The porch and rooflines were unaltered up until the demolition.  Except for it being the house in “NE View” and the porch in “SE View”, the house had no known historic value. 
Also identified were 321, 323, and 329 First Street in the background of “SE View”.  None of these houses have been substantially altered.  321 and 323 are very close together, and just to the north of what is now an auto body shop. 329 is the SW corner of James and First Street.
The small white clapboard church near First Street between Berry Street and Stanley Place is a mystery. The cupola on the roof shows it was a church.  But there’s houses there now. The church is long gone.
The rear half of the infamous pink boarding house at 211 Passaic Street is mostly hidden in the grove of trees beyond the field in “NE View”.  Other sources I’ve researched indicate that the structure was originally a single-family estate or farmhouse significantly set back from Passaic and First Streets, with no other houses around it.  The 211 house was later extended to Passaic Street, and converted into a 30 unit boarding house.  It was gutted by fire on 2/11/2006, and demolished earlier in 2008.  It’s almost inconceivable that the rear of 211 Passaic Street was once part of such a scenic and rural landscape.
I suspect that the pictures pre-date the significant demographic changes of the early 20th century. The residents of these houses around 1900 were probably working class Irish, Scottish, English, and Dutch.  The exception would be DeWolfe Place, those houses were left out of the photos.  DeWolfe Place is believed to have been part of the original hillside and hilltop community of African-Americans living there at the time. The community was just a couple dozen units at the most, and possibly associated with the church on Prospect Ave and Hamilton Place. That needs to be verified. This was prior to expansion of population into what is now called the Carver Park neighborhood, and the construction of other churches. 
There’s also a very small and mysterious house at 438 West Anderson Street, west of Summit Ave near the bottom of the hillside. It’s on a 20 or 25 foot wide lot, and painted green.  It’s only the size of a one-car garage and obviously far older than everything else in the entire neighborhood.  What’s that all about ?  What’s the history of that house, and were there once others like it ?

Looks like someone purchased them for $26 and some change.  Bummer for me.  I hope it was one of you guys (Bob Leife or the Editor).  I would have bid higher and bought them.

In any case, I clicked somewhere on eBay and somehow got onto an "Activa" website that actually had MUCH HIGHER resolution versions of all the photos. Probably almost as good as the original photos.  I copied them all to my hard drive.  And I will copy them to a disk, so they can be printed out in 8 x 10 format.

The 3 photos are definately a Panorama of the Carver Park neighborhood from the hill, 100% sure of that now.  The old school in the distance (right side) on "SE View" is the OLD HIGH SCHOOL, not the Myer Street School.  I can tell by configuration of the chimney on the high-resolution picture. (There are two high school pic's on eBay that weren't posted on www.hackensacknow.com, and they show that exact hip roof and chimney configuration). Therefore, the dirt street on the left side of "SE VIEW" with a part of a front porch has to be James Street.  Why? The high-res version of the pictures clearly shows that there's way too much distance from the north (High Street) side of the old High School to that dirt street for that dirt street to be Clay Street.  Clay and High Streets are only 200 +/- feet apart. That dirt street is way more than 200 feet north of High Street.  So the dirt street has to be JAMES STREET, there's no other option.  Therefore, "NE view" photo shows BERRY STREET, and the rest of the SAME HOUSE on the north side of James Street (see the same porch on both photos !!!). And the pic called "Surrounding" is just to the left of "NE VIEW", because it has the Old Ladies Home in the background.  So it is a panorama. 

Seeing these old photos is not quite as good as being there 110 years ago and actually seeing it, but there's definately a "wow" effect.

I'll visit Hackensack soon to establish exact addressses of the houses still standing.  3 or 4 duplexes were recently built on that block of James Street, so the house in question may have been torn down just within the past 6 months or so. I'll see when I visit, and I'll post any more information.  And I'll take current pic's of anything still standing that is in the old photos, and ADD IT TO THE ALBUM ON DISK !!!  This is turning out to be what I call "fun research."

Let me know if either of you guys want a copy of that disk when it is done, I'll make an extra one and mail it to either of you.

Ooooh, great photos.   Looks like they are all around 1880 -1890.  I've identified the locations of almost all of them, so here goes:

(1) "Anderson Street" --- this is taken along the riverbank at or just south of the White Manna, looking north.  That's the old metal Anderson Street bridge in the distance.

(2) "F.R. Long" --- probably on Prospect Ave, unsure but the last name could be researched and this house can be identified if someone puts the time into it.

(3) "Golf Club" --- That's an easy one.  The Nellie K. Parker School occupies that piece of land, Central Ave between Maple Hill Drive and the Esplanade

(4) "Keoster's Residence" --- judging by the steepness of the hill, this has to be a side street leading up the Summit Ave, from the east.  Photo is looking south. This house might be the location of what is now the Methodist Church (Passaic & Summit), or it's Clinton Place leading up to Summit Ave.

(5) "NE View" --- that's the toughest one.  Could be Hackensack Ave as a narrow dirt lane, maybe near Bergen Tech.  But wasn't the cemetary there at that time.  Can anyone help me with this one ?

(6) "Old Ladies Home" --- that's definately on Passaic Street, NW corner of Passaic and Clarendon. It was only torn down 20 years ago, lots of us remember that building.  Photo is looking north

(7) "SE View" --- 90% sure this is taken from the vicinity of what is now the Whitehall on Prospect Ave, looking east down Clay Street, which is barely even a dirt road. Amazing.  I see part of one house on the left side of the photo. If that's Clay Street, the house in question must be between Third Street and Second Street, on the north side of the street.  Good chance that house is still standing, and can be identified.  If you click on the photo and enlarge, you'll see that the dirt lane (Clay Street) eventually becomes a street with houses on either side, in the distance.  Those houses would be Clay Street between Railroad Ave and Park Street.  You'll also see, in the distance on the right, a large structure that must be the Union Street School (Union & Myer).  Also adding to the evidence is the next photo, evidently taken from the same spot on the ridge, but looking in a different direction.

( "Surroundings" --- This is another easy one, because the Old Ladies Home is in the distance.  Click on the photo to enlarge, and you'll see that the building in the distance is definately the Old Ladies Home. This photo was taken from the vicinity of the Whitehall on Prospect Ave, looking north towards the Old Ladies Home. Most of the open fields are the vicinity of James Street, Berry Street, and Stanley Place around what is now Third Street and Second Street.  This is an absolutely shocking photo. Basically it shows a good part of what is now the Carver Park neighborhood before it was built. Therefore, that photo has significant historic value.  Not shown behind the foliage on the left side of the picture are the many small houses on DeWolfe Place. Those houses on De Wolfe Place were there at that time, in addition to five 2-family houses for factory workers on Prospect Ave, and an enormous 3-story brick Jewelry Factory on the south side of Berry Street between Prospect Ave and what is now Summit. The factory houses were all front on Prospect Ave (SW corner of Berry. They were torn down to build two upscale estates, that have since been converted to office use.)

WOW>>>>>Guys, thanks for digging up these photos and posting them.  Get me some more, and I'll identify them too.  Bob, can you find a photo of the Jewelry factory from that eBay collection. Are there more photos on the eBay collection, or did you buy them all.