Long Boulevards: Anderson Avenue

Today I drove the length of Anderson Avenue, which serves as a Main Street for Fairview and Cliffside Park. It is lined by small stores and services. You can find a post office, library, barbecue spot and halal meat market along this street. It obviously serves as a center for organization for those two towns. What is surprising in driving this boulevard is that as one crosses over into Fort Lee, Anderson Avenue becomes a residential street, anchored by Fairway Market at its southern end and Main Street at the northern end. This sudden change in building type requires some explanation -- why should Anderson Avenue be a commercial corridor in Cliffside Park and then not on the other side of the "Welcome to Fort Lee" sign? On an earlier exploration, friends and I had traced Fort Lee's Main Street on its east-west course from the Palisades to Hackensack. Fort Lee grew up along Main Street, which is where its commercial center is located. Its leafy residential sections are away from the hustle and bustle of its center. Anderson Avenue, which is perpendicular to Main Street, heads south, eventually arriving at the Hudson River at Weehawken. The same logic works for Cliffside Park and Fairview that works for Fort Lee -- commerce on the main street and leafy residential streets at the edges -- but the orientation is shifted by 90 degrees. I learned while spending the summer in Paris that pathways often have their logic routed in history. I lived in small apartment on Rue Saint Andre des Arts, a street that has been the site of heavy foot traffic for about 900 years. Originally people were walking from the center of the city to the duty free market outside the city walls. The lively commerce that was started then is still located in the same place and still draws great crowds. Thus history guides our footsteps, whether we're walking the streets of Paris or exploring the major city streets of our hometowns in New Jersey.

Visiting Main Street with Guru Rod

Dr. Rodrick Wallace is one of the great human ecologists in the United States.  He was willing to take a couple of hours out of his busy schedule to visit NJ Main Streets with me.  We started off from the Columbia University Medical Center where his office is located.  Journalist Molly Rose Kaufman and public health student Laura Gabby joined us.  

First stop--Fort Lee

Fort Lee, once a center of the movie business, is a bustling urban center and the NJ terminus of the George Washington Bridge.  Towering Miami Beach-type condos dot its riverfront skyline. Main Street, however, reminds of us an earlier time.  The old wooden building that houses the hardware store stands out against the backdrop of highrises.  The welcoming post office anchors the comings and goings of local residents.  Like other Main Streets it has found uses in providing banks, restaurants, and clothing stores.  It proudly boasts a major bookstore, Border's, carefully set along the sidewalk to fill the urban tissue.  It is an active center, invigorating a city bisected by major highways.  

After a quick walk up and down the street, we got back in the car and headed out towards Hackensack.  Main Street changes its name as it travels through different cities.  Along the way, we crossed of Grand Avenue, which serves as Main Street, Leonia.  This is a reminder of Joe Getz' point -- Main Street is found at the intersection of Main and Main.  

Second stop--Bogota

Main Street runs north and west from Fort Lee, mostly through residential areas.  It becomes Main Street again in Bogota, a small city with a one block locus of commercial activity that boasts a post office and an excellent candy store.  We walked one block off Main to see the civic center -- city hall, library, senior center, with the police and fire stations nearby.  On our walk we saw a stately Victorian house.  We appreciated the homeowners' sense of whimsy expressed in a sculpture made of old lawnmowers.  "That's the house I thought I'd live in when I grew up," noted Rod.  He left the suburbs, however, for the city and apartment life.  

Third stop-- Hackensack

We drove just 5 more minutes to get to Main Street, Hackensack.  Like Grand Avenue, Main Street, Hackensack runs perpendicular to the road we were on.  Somewhat like a movie set, Hackensack respected the buildings that fronted Main Street, but scooped those behind.  One would guess, given the history in what remains, that many historic structures were demolished and made into parking.  We stationed our car in this vacant area and found our way onto Main Street by passing through an aromatic Asian grocery store.  By this time, the crew was ready for coffee.  A coffee shop next door to the library had good java and eats for us.  Afterwards, we took a minute to visit the library, a spectacular building erected a hundred years ago and recently expanded.  

Whether it was the old slate sidewalk in Bogota or the statue of a Native American in the library in Hackensack, our trip along Bergen county Main Streets revealed layers of history. Rod commented, "It's important to know this history because it is also the future of the city."