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After a year and a half of immigration and job delays my husband and I have finally landed in the NYC area and are looking to buy a house in NJ with the shortest commute possible to NYC. (26th and 11th)
We had eliminated Brooklyn, Hoboken and Jersey City since we would like to keep our car and hopefully have a yard and a garage.
We were focusing our search close to the ferry so we were looking at houses in Edgewater and Cliffside Park. We have been getting some subtle signs from friends in NJ that we may not want to live there and to consider other towns. Schools systems are not currently a concern. Are these areas considered un-desirable for some reason?
If you can afford Edgewater, do it! Great NYC views, great shopping (Whole Foods, Pathmark, Target), pizza shops, Italian restaurants, and what's great everything is modern for the most part and the city itself is very clean. I would love to live there. Quick commute to NYC by car and not too bad by bus through the Lincoln Tunnel, and easy to get to all the shopping in Bergen County.
not sure why you're getting bad vibes about these towns - both are nice, although edgewater is more uniformly upscale than cliffside. edgewater underwent two housing booms - one in the mid-to-late-'80s, and then again from the mid-'90s through the mid-2000s. as a result, the town has a number of newish, upscale townhouses, condos, and high-rises. the great majority of these buildings were built along river road and have great views of the manhattan skyline. there are also older homes and apartments along undercliff ave, which runs 1 block to the west of and parallel to river road, as well as in the northern part of town closer to the gw bridge.
generally, the longtime residents of town tend to be blue collar and live in the older houses and modest apartment units, as edgewater used to be a gritty industrial town before it underwent its transformation into a yuppie white collar town over the past 20-25 years. but the older residents are now greatly outnumbered by the yuppie professionals. there is also a pretty large asian population in town, which is mainly korean and, to a lesser extent, japanese.
and as capo mentioned, edgewater offers a ton of shopping. unfortunately, that also means that traffic along river road is pretty bad, especially on saturdays. this problem is exacerbated by edgewater's challenging geography, as the town is hemmed in by the hudson river on the east side, the palisades cliffs on the west, and the gw bridge to the north - meaning that there are only a handful of ingress/egress points.
stil, it's a great town overall. there is a ferry to midtown manhattan (12th ave at w. 38th st, with free bus service from the manhattan ferry terminal to other locations in manhattan) as well as buses to the port authority bus terminal in midtown and the george washington bridge bus terminal in uptown. and all of the new apartment units include off-street parking for residents, since edgewater is very much a car-oriented town.
as for cliffside, there is a wider range of incomes and housing styles than the typical bergen county suburb. the further north or east you go, the more likely you'll find upscale high-rises (especially on palisade ave along the fort lee border and also on gorge road) and expensive single family houses (mainly along the cliffs east of palisade ave). but in southwestern cliffside - closer to the border with fairview - you'll find a more working-class feel with relatively affordable but nondescript apartments, duplexes, and modest single family homes on small, tightly packed lots. this area is certainly not dangerous, but it's decidedly working class, which may be a turnoff for some people. there are also plenty of middle class residents in town who live on nice, leafy streets with older single family homes (especially near the fort lee and ridgefield borders).
i'm not sure why some people might have a poor impression of cliffside, as it's a very solid town. it has a nice downtown commercial/shopping district along anderson ave and a diverse population with the accompanying ethnic restaurants (korean, japanese, chinese, italian, guatemalan, salvadoran). it definitely has more of a traditional, early 20th century feel than most of edgewater. it also boasts some spectacular nyc skyline views from the top of the cliffs. and it's a little bit more accessible by car to the rest of bergen county, not to mention the busy latino commercial strip along bergenline ave in hudson county. and it has single family homes with yards, which is not as common in edgewater since that town is dominated by high-rises, condos, and townhouses.
Edgewater is the best town in New Jersey if you don't mind the Asian flavor and don't require tier 1 schools.
1) <1 hour commute door-to-door anywhere in Manhattan if you live close to 158 bus stops.
2) Astonishingly low property taxes
3) Brand new constructions at affordable prices
4) VERY underrated schools (Leonia High School is unbeatable for the tax you pay, 1037 SAT score makes it a very solid tier 2 school district) for your tax dollars.
5) Upscale shopping with Whole Foods, Trader Joe, Mitsuwa and City Place:
People who complain about over-development don't realize how outdated the entire New York metro area is compared to Asian powerhouses like Hong Kong, Shanghai, etc. I really wish there are more areas like Edgewater to choose from.
i live in cliffside park and have lived in edgewater as well and i personally like both towns.
both towns have somewhat easy commuting options(bus, ferry, but depending on the actual location), not too far from major highways/lincoln tunnel/GWB and near shops.
ask your friends in detail to try to figure out why they found those towns to be undesirable
Thank you everyone for the input - we had a great impression of these towns and I am pleased to see it was not just the view from the outside!
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