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I see houses with comparable prices in Rutherford and Lyndhurst. The only difference I can tell between the two is that Rutherford seems to have a much nicer downtown. Other than that are there significant differences? Are public schools decent in either town? Are they safe? Better commutes in one vs. the other? Does one flood and perhaps the other doesn't? If someone could shed some light it would very much help my wife and I to make an informed decision on choosing a town.
IMO Rutherford is much nicer then Lyndhurst It has a "Downtown", great access by bus or train to NYC, lots of cute restaurants. Don't know about the schools. Rt 17 can flood in that area, not sure about lyndhurst
rutherford as a whole is clearly a notch above lyndhurst. all things being equal, go for the house in rutherford if you can. rutherford is the wealthier town and has a nicer housing stock (mainly older, single family detached homes with classic american architecture), plenty of streets lined with tall, mature trees, and a nicer downtown area. both towns are quite walkable in general, though, since they're older towns that sprung up around their train stations.
rutherford's public high school is definitely better than lyndhurst's, and i assume the same is true for the elementary schools. both towns are exceedingly safe; no worries whatsoever about crime. lyndhurst is more of a blue collar town, with an entrenched population of italian, irish, and polish residents; rutherford has a lot of the same demographics, but with a higher percentage of white collar mixed in as well. both towns are majority white, but have moderate (and slowly growing) latino populations. lyndhurst's asian population is moderate while rutherford's is fairly sizeable. rutherford has only a handful of african-americans while lyndhurst has virtually none.
there are equally good mass transit options from either town to nyc or other parts of nj. rutherford has a train station at the end of the downtown area (right on the border with east rutherford) and lyndhurst has two (kingsland and lyndhurst) that go to hoboken (direct) or to penn station in midtown manhattan (via a transfer in secaucus). in addition, there are nj transit buses from rutherford and decamp buses from lyndhurst that go to the port authority bus terminal in midtown manhattan, not to mention a jitney bus that loops around rutherford during rush hour to take people to or from the train station. there are also nj transit buses to nearby cities such as newark or hackensack.
highway access to and from these towns is excellent in all directions. routes 3, 17, 21, and the nj turnpike all pass through or just beyond the municipal boundaries, while the garden state parkway and routes 7, 46, and 80 are not too far away either. so you can easily hop on a highway to get into the city, up to the malls in paramus, down to newark, etc. really, the location of these towns is unbeatable.
as for flooding, it's only a problem in the meadowlands (eastern) sections of rutherford and lyndhurst. specifically, anything east of (and including) route 17 in rutherford and east of orient way/schuyler ave in lyndhurst was built on swampland and thus is floodprone. the thing is, virtually all of the residential areas of these towns were built in the hilly, western areas, so unless you're specifically looking for housing in the sparsely populated meadowlands areas, you won't have to worry about flooding too much. perhaps an exception would be the far western area of rutherford, in between jackson ave and the passaic river; because of the proximity to the river, flooding is sometimes an issue over there. other than that, the residential areas shouldn't have any flooding.
for what it's worth, the swampy, eastern areas of these towns are a mix of industrial uses, office parks, hotels, entertainment (medieval times), open marshland, and a very small amount of residential development. until recently there were no residential zones out there, but now there's a condo complex (i think it was built by avalon) right next to the wall street west office park in the swamps of eastern lyndhurst, which is a bizarre location considering it's completely isolated from the train stations, commercial areas, and other residential areas of town. there are also plans for a condo development in the marshy eastern area of rutherford (east of route 17) around highland cross. but again, unless you're specifically looking into those developments, you really won't have to worry about flooding.
rutherford as a whole is clearly a notch above lyndhurst. all things being equal, go for the house in rutherford if you can. rutherford is the wealthier town and has a nicer housing stock (mainly older, single family detached homes with classic american architecture), plenty of streets lined with tall, mature trees, and a nicer downtown area. both towns are quite walkable in general, though, since they're older towns that sprung up around their train stations.
rutherford's public high school is definitely better than lyndhurst's, and i assume the same is true for the elementary schools. both towns are exceedingly safe; no worries whatsoever about crime. lyndhurst is more of a blue collar town, with an entrenched population of italian, irish, and polish residents; rutherford has a lot of the same demographics, but with a higher percentage of white collar mixed in as well. both towns are majority white, but have moderate (and slowly growing) latino populations. lyndhurst's asian population is moderate while rutherford's is fairly sizeable. rutherford has only a handful of african-americans while lyndhurst has virtually none.
there are equally good mass transit options from either town to nyc or other parts of nj. rutherford has a train station at the end of the downtown area (right on the border with east rutherford) and lyndhurst has two (kingsland and lyndhurst) that go to hoboken (direct) or to penn station in midtown manhattan (via a transfer in secaucus). in addition, there are nj transit buses from rutherford and decamp buses from lyndhurst that go to the port authority bus terminal in midtown manhattan, not to mention a jitney bus that loops around rutherford during rush hour to take people to or from the train station. there are also nj transit buses to nearby cities such as newark or hackensack.
highway access to and from these towns is excellent in all directions. routes 3, 17, 21, and the nj turnpike all pass through or just beyond the municipal boundaries, while the garden state parkway and routes 7, 46, and 80 are not too far away either. so you can easily hop on a highway to get into the city, up to the malls in paramus, down to newark, etc. really, the location of these towns is unbeatable.
as for flooding, it's only a problem in the meadowlands (eastern) sections of rutherford and lyndhurst. specifically, anything east of (and including) route 17 in rutherford and east of orient way/schuyler ave in lyndhurst was built on swampland and thus is floodprone. the thing is, virtually all of the residential areas of these towns were built in the hilly, western areas, so unless you're specifically looking for housing in the sparsely populated meadowlands areas, you won't have to worry about flooding too much. perhaps an exception would be the far western area of rutherford, in between jackson ave and the passaic river; because of the proximity to the river, flooding is sometimes an issue over there. other than that, the residential areas shouldn't have any flooding.
for what it's worth, the swampy, eastern areas of these towns are a mix of industrial uses, office parks, hotels, entertainment (medieval times), open marshland, and a very small amount of residential development. until recently there were no residential zones out there, but now there's a condo complex (i think it was built by avalon) right next to the wall street west office park in the swamps of eastern lyndhurst, which is a bizarre location considering it's completely isolated from the train stations, commercial areas, and other residential areas of town. there are also plans for a condo development in the marshy eastern area of rutherford (east of route 17) around highland cross. but again, unless you're specifically looking into those developments, you really won't have to worry about flooding.
Awesome post! I remember as a kid, Lyndhurst was 1/2 Italian (like us) and 1/2 Polish.
PBergen does hit a lot of the nails right on the head.
However, Rutherford has very, very high property taxes and is currently embroiled in quite a few political snafus that could them even higher. Check out The Leader Newspaper for more information on this. Taxes went up something like 30% in 2 years. The last administration was booted out of office as a result, but the new admin has to inherit a lot of the headaches now.
Also, the downtown of Rutherford is much nicer, but as a sign of the times, things are closing and not re-opening. The businesses that are there - even LONG time shops & restaurants - are suffering a lot. So I don't know how vital a district this downtown will be in the years to come.
In regard to schools, I'd have to say that Rutherfords are superior to Lyndhursts, but honnestly, not by as much as people think. In Southern Bergen people REALLY think Ruterford's schools are wonderful... they are ok - but they are no Ridgewood or Tenafly, I can assure you of that.
There is a train in both towns for commuting.
Crime is not terrible, but it does exist in small doses in both towns.
If you like nail salons and tanning places on Park Ave then Rutherford is your town. There are a few excellent restaurants there, though. A lot of empty store fronts, however. The West End is pitiful, empty stores and no grocery stores in Rutherford which is a minus for me. You have to go to Shop Rite in Lyndhurst but there's an Stop and Shop in Wallington and one in Clifton near the Commons.
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