Fort Lee is a borough in Bergen County, New Jersey, home to about 40,067 people across 2.5 square miles. Its ZIP code is 07024.
Homes sold for a median of $448 per square foot in the three months ending August 2026, a balanced market.
Each card is that ZIP code’s whole market, including any part outside Fort Lee. Seller’s market: under 4 months of supply; buyer’s market: over 6. Methodology
Fort Lee takes its name from a Revolutionary War fort on the Palisades. In July 1776 American troops began fortifying the cliff top, first calling the post Fort Constitution and later renaming it for General Charles Lee; Fort Washington stood opposite on Manhattan, and obstructions were sunk in the river between them. After Fort Washington fell on November 16, 1776, British forces crossed the Hudson north of the fort on November 20, and Washington ordered an immediate retreat, leaving most supplies and artillery behind. Parker's Pond, where the army camped, was filled in 1908 to create Monument Park.
Coytesville, the northernmost section, grew from a settlement founded in the 1840s by Joseph Coyte. Fort Lee became a borough in 1904. Between about 1907 and the early 1920s it was a leading center of American filmmaking: Carl Laemmle shot Hiawatha in Coytesville in 1909, the Champion studio built in 1910 just over the Englewood Cliffs line became the first home of Universal in 1912, Fox and Eclair also set up there, and Alice Guy-Blaché opened her Solax studio in 1912. Silent comedies were filmed on Main Street, and the cliffs served as a backdrop for serial thrillers. Production drifted to Hollywood in the 1920s, though some filming continued into the 1940s.
The George Washington Bridge, opened in 1931, made the borough the New Jersey gateway to upper Manhattan. A 16-acre tract near the bridge where studios once stood sat undeveloped for decades after failed redevelopment attempts from the 1970s on, and was finally built up in the 2010s.
Fort Lee sits on top of the Palisades directly across the Hudson from upper Manhattan, and its housing reflects that position. Along the cliff edge, on Palisade Avenue and Hudson Terrace, a row of high-rise co-op, condominium and rental towers looks out over the river and the Manhattan skyline. The tallest are the two 47-story towers of The Modern near GWB Plaza, completed in the late 2010s on the long-vacant redevelopment tract, which also holds the Hudson Lights shops, offices and theater and a borough park of about two acres between the buildings.
Away from the cliff edge, the blocks inland are built up at a lower scale of houses and smaller apartment buildings. Main Street is the downtown, home to the public library at 320 Main Street, and Palisade Avenue crosses it and runs along the cliff top past the Fort Lee Museum to GWB Plaza, the busy crossroads at the bridge approach.
Named sections include Coytesville in the north, where the streets remain narrow and hilly and the area kept a more rural feel than the rest of the borough into the 1970s, along with Lincoln Heights, Linwood, Palisade and Taylorville. The Fort Lee School District serves the borough.
The George Washington Bridge, which carries Interstate 95 and US 1/9 and US 46 across the Hudson, lands in Fort Lee and links it directly to upper Manhattan. The northern end of the New Jersey Turnpike, Route 4, Route 67 (Lemoine Avenue), Route 5, US 9W and the Palisades Interstate Parkway all meet in or near the borough, making it a hub for driving north into New York State or west into Bergen County.
There is no rail station in Fort Lee; buses carry most transit riders. As of 2026, NJ Transit route 158 runs from Main Street to the Port Authority Bus Terminal in Midtown about every ten minutes, with a typical trip of around 36 minutes, and other routes cross the bridge from GWB Plaza to the George Washington Bridge Bus Terminal in Washington Heights, where riders connect to the New York City subway.
Fort Lee Historic Park allows bicycles only as far as its parking area, but the Long Path and the Shore Trail, which follow the Palisades north, begin beside its visitor center.
Fort Lee Historic Park, a 33-acre cliff-top unit of the Palisades Interstate Park entered from Hudson Terrace just south of the bridge, has two overlooks facing the George Washington Bridge and upper Manhattan, a reconstructed blockhouse, gun batteries and firing steps, and reconstructed soldiers' and officers' huts used for living history programs. Its visitor center, open Wednesday through Sunday, has exhibits on the 1776 New York campaign and a 150-seat auditorium. Trailheads for the Long Path and the Shore Trail are just outside.
The Fort Lee Museum occupies the Judge Moore House at 1588 Palisade Avenue, a bluestone house built in 1922 that the borough bought in 1989 to save it from demolition; the museum opened in 1999, is run by the Fort Lee Historical Society, changes its exhibits through the year and keeps archives on the Revolution, the film era and the bridge. Monument Park, beside it, marks the 1776 encampment.
The Barrymore Film Center, built by the borough near the bridge and opened in October 2022, is a repertory cinema with a free museum on the borough's early studios, a gallery for rotating exhibits and a walk of fame for early film figures. The Fort Lee Film Commission, founded in 1999, marks historic film sites around town. The Fort Lee Public Library on Main Street runs language conversation groups, story times and museum passes, and the borough has run a summer concert and movie series. Main Street is the main shopping street.
Researched and drafted from the public sources below. Updated October 2026. Spot something wrong or out of date? Tell us.
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Get matched| Nearest major airport | LaGuardia Airport (LGA)7 miles away |
|---|---|
| Nearest city of 250,000+ | Jersey City, NJ11 miles away |
| Nearest city of 1 million+ | New York, NY13 miles away |
Straight-line distances from the center of Fort Lee; driving is longer.
Source: Airports from OurAirports (scheduled passenger service); city centers and populations from the U.S. Census Bureau.
Source: Members of Congress from the congress-legislators project; districts from the Census Bureau’s relationship files; governor and mayor from Wikidata.
Fort Lee had 40,191 residents in the 2020 census, up 13% since 2000.
It’s the 60th largest of 565 towns in New Jersey by population.
Bergen County grew from 78,441 residents in 1900 to 955,732 in 2020.
Bergen County, 1900–2020
Source: U.S. Census Bureau decennial censuses (counties 1900–1990 from the Bureau’s historical county file).
Average highs peak around 87°F in summer, and winter lows average 26°F. About 46.4 inches of rain and melted snow fall in a typical year.
Source: NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals, Teterboro Ap, NJ weather station (5 miles away).
441,870 jobs at 31,818 businesses in Bergen County. The biggest industries by employees:
Source: U.S. Census Bureau County Business Patterns 2023 (private employers; jobs counted where people work).
382 doctors and other health care providers list an office in Fort Lee.
Nearest hospitals
Providers with an office here
| Primary care doctors | 32 |
|---|---|
| Specialist doctors | 49 |
| Dentists | 115 |
| Nurse practitioners and physician assistants | 31 |
| Mental health providers | 72 |
| Physical and occupational therapists | 57 |
| Optometrists | 5 |
| Chiropractors | 21 |
| Pharmacies | 25 |
Source: Hospitals from CMS Hospital General Information (ratings are CMS overall star ratings); straight-line distances; providers from the CMS National Plan and Provider Enumeration System (NPPES), by practice address and primary specialty.
Parks (16 nearby)
Grocery stores (7 nearby)
Pharmacies (7 nearby)
Libraries (3 nearby)
Museums (1 nearby)
Theaters and performance venues (1 nearby)
Counts are within about 1.5 miles of the center of town.
Source: Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors (openstreetmap.org/copyright), as mapped by volunteers; it can miss places or include closed ones.
Notable people born here
Source: Wikidata (wikidata.org), the free knowledge base; people are listed by place of birth.
Public schools here are run by Fort Lee School District. Check each district’s attendance zones for a specific address.
| School | Grades | Students | Type | Distance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| School No. 2Fort Lee | Pre-K–4 | 362 | Public | 0.6 mi |
| School No. 3Fort Lee | Pre-K–4 | 330 | Public | 1.1 mi |
| School No. 1Fort Lee | K–4 | 540 | Public | 0.1 mi |
| School No. 4Fort Lee | K–4 | 377 | Public | 0.9 mi |
| Lewis F. Cole Middle SchoolFort Lee | 5–8 | 1,227 | Public | 0.3 mi |
| Fort Lee High SchoolFort Lee | 9–12 | 1,170 | Public | 0.7 mi |
| School | Grades | Students | Affiliation | Distance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Green House Preschool & KindergartenFort Lee | Pre-K–K | 12 | Nonsectarian | 0.6 mi |
Source: U.S. Department of Education, NCES: Common Core of Data (2024-2025) for public schools; Private School Universe Survey (2023-2024) for private schools. Listed by address; we don’t rate schools.
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Town boundaries don’t always match ZIP codes: a ZIP code can cross into neighboring towns, and a town can share a ZIP code with its neighbors. Facts describe the town itself; market figures describe whole ZIP codes.