Garfield, New Jersey

History

The Hackensack band of the Lenape fished the Passaic River here, building stone dams and eel weirs to trap shad near Dundee Island. In 1679 Jacques Cortelyou of New Utrecht on Long Island bought a tract of about 5,320 acres reaching from the Saddle River to the Great Rock in today's Glen Rock, which was later divided among buyers who farmed along the Passaic. During the retreat of November 1776, local men wrecked the Passaic bridge near present-day Wallington, and the pursuing British camped along the river between Monroe Street and Outwater Lane before fording it on November 27. Markers stand at River Drive and Columbus Avenue and at the YMCA on Outwater Lane.

Around 1800 Abram C. Zabriskie built a gristmill, store, dam and docks at Peck Hook Landing to ship freight to Newark. Modern Garfield traces to 1873, when Gilbert D. Bogart built seven houses in an area then called East Passaic. The Bergen County Railroad opened in 1881 with a station named for President James A. Garfield, who died that year, and the town took the station's name. Garfield became a borough on March 15, 1898, from part of Saddle River Township, and a city on April 19, 1917. It has used a city manager and a five-member council since 1972.

The Passaic riverfront filled with industry: woolen and worsted mills including the Forstmann and Samuel Hird works, a chemical works later run by Heyden, Tenneco and Kalama, a fishing tackle factory on Passaic Street and Garden State Paper, long the largest employer, which closed in 2002. The nickname City of Champions comes from the 1939 Garfield High School football team, a national champion, and other title-winning teams and athletes. The Octagon House at 23 Orchard Street, one of two such houses left in Bergen County, and the Veterans Bridge are among the surviving landmarks.

What it’s like to live there

Garfield is compact and almost fully built out, with homes, shops and light industry mixed together across the city. Two-family houses are the most common building type, alongside detached single-family homes, small three- and four-unit buildings and some larger apartment buildings. Most of the housing dates from before 1960. Place names still used for parts of the city include Belmont, Bogart Heights, Dundee and Plauderville, and the city is divided into four wards.

The former industrial riverfront along River Drive has been redeveloped in recent years. Signature Place, on the site of the former Garden State Paper mill, added townhouses and apartments, the River Drive corridor north of Belmont Avenue has seen new housing and retail, with its east side planned as a restaurant row, and the former Samuel Hird mill site on Outwater Lane now holds stores and banks. Near the Plauderville station, the former Sketchley plant on Cherry Street has been converted to apartments.

Passaic Street is a main shopping corridor, with an outdoor shopping center on a former commercial site, and River Drive, Outwater Lane, Midland Avenue and Jewell Street carry other stores and services. Jewell Street Park reopened in 2022 after a redesign, and Dahnert's Lake County Park sits near the middle of the city. Garfield Public Schools serves the city. The Passaic River forms the western border, and the Saddle River meets the Passaic within the city.

Getting around

Garfield has two stations on NJ Transit's Bergen County Line: Garfield station, one block south of Midland Avenue, and Plauderville station at Plauderville and Midland avenues near the Saddle Brook border. Both are accessible, have ticket machines in the shelter and bike racks, and Plauderville has free commuter lots on Midland Avenue and Henrietta Street. Southbound trains run through Wood-Ridge and Rutherford to Secaucus Junction, the transfer point for New York Penn Station, and end at Hoboken Terminal, with connections to PATH, the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail and NY Waterway ferries. Northbound trains run through Fair Lawn, Glen Rock and Ridgewood toward Waldwick and Suffern.

By road, U.S. Route 46 and County Route 507 pass through the city, and Midland Avenue, Outwater Lane, River Drive and Passaic Street are the main local streets. Five crossings of the Passaic River serve the city. A streetscape project called River to Rail, backed by a $1.1 million streetscape grant, is improving Passaic Street, with county repaving to follow.

Things to do

Dahnert's Lake County Park, run by Bergen County, covers 10 acres in the center of the city, with a lake for catch-and-release fishing (a state license is required), a walking and biking path, a playground and a roller hockey rink. Jewell Street Park was rebuilt and reopened in 2022. The city also runs a recreation center, and the Garfield YMCA on Outwater Lane, funded by mill owner Samuel Hird, is a long-standing local landmark with a Revolutionary War marker outside.

History can be traced on foot along the river: Revolutionary War monuments and markers stand on River Drive and Outwater Lane where the British forded the Passaic in 1776, the Octagon House survives at 23 Orchard Street, and the Veterans Bridge, formerly the Robertsford Bridge, crosses the Passaic. The Dundee Dam on the Passaic, which served the Forstmann mills, is part of the same industrial story.

The city also runs a public library and a senior center. River Drive, with new housing and retail on its northern stretch, and Passaic Street are the main places to shop and eat.