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LOL. Right next to Ridgewood. Very small town, doesn't even have its own high school. The high school went to Ridgewood for years, then Ridgewood booted them out and they went to Midland Park (my hometown). I was the last class to graduate without Ho-Ho-Kus kids, in 1976. Then after about 20 years or so, they went back to Ridgewood.
The day that the first Ho-Ho-Kus high school students started at MPHS, the headline in The Record read "Blue Blood Meets Blue Collar". We didn't take kindly to that, but the kids didn't turn out to be as stuck up as everyone anticipated.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mightyqueen801
LOL, some missed the part where I graduated in 1976! YES, Midland Park was blue collar, as were most of those NW Bergen towns, not including Ridgewood. We had chickens in the backyard. No traffic lights, no curbs or sidewalks, cesspools, not sewers. Wyckoff had farms and a feed-and-grain store on Main St. Allendale had horse farms, and was VERY blue collar. My cousin lived in Mahwah, which was mostly farms or woods, and her address was an RFD#. The massive development you know now started in the late 70's, early 80's, and overnight the area became "affluent", but it was much different 40 years ago. And my mother remembers the 50's, when Franklin Lakes and Upper Saddle River were nothing but little farms, and then they started selling them off at $1500 per acre.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mightyqueen801
No, this goes way back before the area was as populated as it is now. If you ride through the towns of Bergen County, you will notice that many of their "Welcome" signs say "Incorporated 1894". Some are 1896, etc., but a whole lot of towns were incorporated as individual boroughs in 1894. (Ridgewood's different--it's a "village".) Each town had its own characteristics and individuality, and I guess they wanted to keep it that way. Fast forward to now, when the towns are all built up and more homogenous, and it doesn't seem to make sense anymore. Boroughitis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Incorporated in '94 and '96? And which high school class were you part of, '94 or '96? ~~~ Oh, shut my mouth! (I know, I know... you already told us: 76! Just having fun with ya!)
Methinks you're a decade or two off:
I also remember MP back in the 70's. It was well en route to 'a step above,' (at least from the perspective of us kids from Paterson.)
Wyckoff was already there. (Two steps above!)
And Farrah was already living in Franklin Lakes in the late '70s. (Funny, the things I remember. Hmmm... guess it shows where my mind was at!)
Go way back to the 50's... yea, I'll buy the 'old farmland story,' but that was before my time.
Since you bring up how Franklin Lakes, Mahwah, etc all used to be farmland and not highly populated what towns do you see as the future Franklin Lakes in Northern NJ? Also, what towns do you see plummeting to be the next Hackensack or Paterson (if any)?
Incorporated in '94 and '96? And which high school class were you part of, '94 or '96? ~~~ Oh, shut my mouth! (I know, I know... you already told us: 76! Just having fun with ya!)
Methinks you're a decade or two off:
I also remember MP back in the 70's. It was well en route to 'a step above,' (at least from the perspective of us kids from Paterson.)
Wyckoff was already there. (Two steps above!)
And Farrah was already living in Franklin Lakes in the late '70s. (Funny, the things I remember. Hmmm... guess it shows where my mind was at!)
Go way back to the 50's... yea, I'll buy the 'old farmland story,' but that was before my time.
LOL, maybe from the Paterson perspective, yeah, it might have seemed a step above, but compared to the towns around us, we were still just a couple of steps out of semi-rural. Most people's fathers were plumbers and electricians and carpenters, not people who wore suits and took a train to the city. By the time I graduated high school, I think our chickens were all gone to the great coop in the sky, and a couple of years after I graduated, the town put in sewers and along with that we had curbs on the streets and lines painted down the middle. Fancy.
The memory of cows and whatnot in Wyckoff and Franklin Lakes is probably more from the 1960's, when I was a kid, but it still was far more undeveloped in the mid-1970's than it is now. There were a lot more woods and fewer traffic lights, etc. There were dirt roads all up in there leading to ponds and lakes where we hung out drank beer and smoked pot. If I recall, Farrah lived in "Urban Farms", which was "the" wealthy area with the big houses in Franklin Lakes at the time.
Not dissing Paterson. My mother used to take me shopping at Meyer Brothers and Jacobs because things were so expensive "out on the highway".
Incorporated in '94 and '96? And which high school class were you part of, '94 or '96? ~~~ Oh, shut my mouth! (I know, I know... you already told us: 76! Just having fun with ya!)
LOL, hey, that Bergen County Historical Society membership paid off!
Since you bring up how Franklin Lakes, Mahwah, etc all used to be farmland and not highly populated what towns do you see as the future Franklin Lakes in Northern NJ? Also, what towns do you see plummeting to be the next Hackensack or Paterson (if any)?
Hackensack is booming not dying , and Paterson is starting to come back , the big boom for Bergen / Passaic counties will come when the Bergen - Passaic LRT , Northern Branch LRT and West Shore line are completed. The Railway towns are doing better then the Auto towns....atm
LOL, some missed the part where I graduated in 1976! YES, Midland Park was blue collar, as were most of those NW Bergen towns, not including Ridgewood. We had chickens in the backyard. No traffic lights, no curbs or sidewalks, cesspools, not sewers. Wyckoff had farms and a feed-and-grain store on Main St. Allendale had horse farms, and was VERY blue collar. My cousin lived in Mahwah, which was mostly farms or woods, and her address was an RFD#. The massive development you know now started in the late 70's, early 80's, and overnight the area became "affluent", but it was much different 40 years ago. And my mother remembers the 50's, when Franklin Lakes and Upper Saddle River were nothing but little farms, and then they started selling them off at $1500 per acre.
And if you go REEAL far back, Race Track Rd. in Ho-Ho-Kus had a real race track. The famous car announcer Chris Economacki used to walk from Ridgewood to the old track when he was a kid.
"Promoters built Bergen County Park in 1906 with 1/2-mile trotting track located on Race Track Road within the loop of the present Arbor Drive, just west of Route 17. It was first used for auto racing in 1912. The track ran in the 1920s under a succession of independent clubs, but in 1934 Jack Kochman secured an AAA sanction that attracted drivers of the caliber of Ted Horn, Bob Sall and Tommy Hinner****z. Known by then as HoHoKus Speedway, it was quite successful over the succeeding four years."
"One of the fans it attracted from the nearby town of Ridgewood was a young Chris Economaki who began his career by selling the Bergen Herald racing supplement at the track. Chris, of course, went on to become editor of the paper, now National Speed Sport News. On July 4, 1938, Henry Guerand and Vince Brehm locked wheels and spun through the pits. Starter Francis Fanning was seriously hurt and two spectators, including a ten year old boy, were killed when Guerand's car catapulted off the track into a parked car. The crash ended racing at HoHoKus."
The text is followed by a picture of a race car receiving the checkered flag - part of the pits and of Turn 1 can also be seen. More significantly, there is a contemporary map showing the location of the track.
Allen E. Brown on his very complete "The History of America's Speedways - Past & Present" (published by the author, P.O. Box 448, Comstock Park, MI 49321, United States, phone (616) 361-6229, ISBN 0-931105-42-0) makes a citation on its page 353 that reads:
And if you go REEAL far back, Race Track Rd. in Ho-Ho-Kus had a real race track. The famous car announcer Chris Economacki used to walk from Ridgewood to the old track when he was a kid.
"Promoters built Bergen County Park in 1906 with 1/2-mile trotting track located on Race Track Road within the loop of the present Arbor Drive, just west of Route 17. It was first used for auto racing in 1912. The track ran in the 1920s under a succession of independent clubs, but in 1934 Jack Kochman secured an AAA sanction that attracted drivers of the caliber of Ted Horn, Bob Sall and Tommy Hinner****z. Known by then as HoHoKus Speedway, it was quite successful over the succeeding four years."
"One of the fans it attracted from the nearby town of Ridgewood was a young Chris Economaki who began his career by selling the Bergen Herald racing supplement at the track. Chris, of course, went on to become editor of the paper, now National Speed Sport News. On July 4, 1938, Henry Guerand and Vince Brehm locked wheels and spun through the pits. Starter Francis Fanning was seriously hurt and two spectators, including a ten year old boy, were killed when Guerand's car catapulted off the track into a parked car. The crash ended racing at HoHoKus."
The text is followed by a picture of a race car receiving the checkered flag - part of the pits and of Turn 1 can also be seen. More significantly, there is a contemporary map showing the location of the track.
Allen E. Brown on his very complete "The History of America's Speedways - Past & Present" (published by the author, P.O. Box 448, Comstock Park, MI 49321, United States, phone (616) 361-6229, ISBN 0-931105-42-0) makes a citation on its page 353 that reads:
I knew there had been a racetrack there, but I didn't know all that history. Thanks for posting.
In high school and for a short time afterward, I worked at a drycleaners on the border of Ridgewood and Ho-Ho-Kus. Chris Economaki was a regular customer. I had no idea who he was, but my boss was impressed. Joe Torre came in a couple of times, too, when his regular cleaners was closed for vacation.
Isn't Franklin Lakes very close to the cancer cluster that was identified in Pompton Lakes. I thought both were previously predominantly farmland areas where toxic chemicals had been known to be dumped. Anyone know the history there and any cancer data?
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~~~ Oh, shut my mouth! 
(I know, I know... you already told us: 76! Just having fun with ya!)
Really BAD humor ~~~
