Which towns in Bergen County have the nicest downtowns?

[Mightyqueen801]

Originally Posted by GoodSchoolols

I concur about Englewood and Ridgewood. Ridgewood seems to win every time in terms of schools and downtown. Ridgewood has it all...except...well...you have a lot of "high strung" "high maintenance" types so if seeing that doesn't bother you then Ridgewood is the place to be.

On the down side, a friend of mine used to attend early morning AA meetings with a lot of wealthy Ridgewood people. She took me along one time to a Christmas party that one of them threw. The woman was the alcoholic, and she was a lawyer. Her husband was a doctor. The house was gorgeous--the basement was a huge theater and game room, all the furniture was expensive, you could tell the place had been professionally decorated. Very fancy food from a caterer. Big yard, pool, the whole works. Ridgewood stereotypical through and through. Most of the guests were other wealthy alcoholics from the morning meeting, all made up, hair and nails perfect and dressed in expensive clothes. It was the weirdest party I ever went to. I'm a friendly sort, and can usually get conversations going with just about anyone, but not with this crowd. They all looked uneasy, didn't seem to know how to keep up their end of a conversation and so many of them just sat there in silence. They had no idea how to interact with others without alcohol.

Sometimes when you look behind all the trimmings, there's a dark side.

[rochie]

In our family, we prefer Westwood to all those listed, including Ridgewood. We liked Westwood so much that we almost decided to buy there (even though our budget was much more "Ridgewood"). In the end our job transfer was postponed so we did not move ahead with that plan. It's still on our radar screen though.

[Nunnor]

Ridgewood is the most beautiful, cleanest and best looking Downtown in Bergen County.

I also like Edgewater near the Hudson River & NYC View to walk.

[rochie]

I can see the Ridgewood appeal. At the same time, Ridgewood seems more to me like a place to go to eat out or just to window shop in expensive stores (with high turnover rates). Westwood seem like a much more "real" downtown. I find nearly all the northern Bergen County downtown areas to be equally clean, so they are really just different flavors of nice. Ridgewood is also larger so if you would like a larger downtown, Ridgewood is the place.