Fair Lawn?

[Kevin1975]

Yes you did. I was referring to Wyckoff.

[JERSEY201973]

It's also industrial on Maple Ave. Lots of good eats in Fairlawn. Someone said 10 pizzeria's? Try 20something!

[happy07410]

I just moved to fair lawn and I think it's a great town. I happen to live on by the elmwood park and patterson side and believe me i could'nt feel more safe. The schools are excellent and i'm so happy with my house and the neighborhoos. I moved to NJ from NY 2 years ago. I first lived in a town called Lodi where it wasnt good but after searching for a year and doing my research, i found Fair lawn to be the best place.

[nykstevenyg]

Fair Lawn is a great town, except for the northern side of radburn, properties are a little small but you get a lot of good things in Fair Lawn. While it is very Russian and Jewish, its not ALL russian and jewish plenty of Italian and Irish people also.

[JMC49]

What's with the northern side of Radburn?I thought this was the best area people say.

[Kevin1975]

Some of the lot sizes are small. Radburn was the first planned community in the US. You pay a yearly community fee for this section of Fair Lawn. But it entitles you use of the tennis courts, pool, and activities.

[annaegel]

I lived in Radburn for 17 years. I can tell you that unless you have young kids, it is not worth the extra money to live in there. It is very nice area and you feel like you are in your own little European world. The homes are very old and need constant updating. You are squished close together. There have been legal problems with the association and a group for the people of Radburn. It has been going on for 5 years, with no end in sight. The schools are very good. My girls loved most of their teachers. If you have a child with special needs, any school in Fair Lawn is great. Radburn does tend to have a high Russian population.

I don't know if Radburn still has childrens programs. It seems those come and go. They keep raising the yearly fees, but reducing the programs. The summer camps for the wee little ones was cute, but as they got older, I had a lot of problems with the counsellors. Not worth the freebie.

[rocknrooler]

Fairlawn is not very big (only like 5 sq miles), but it is very densly populated, with the western Paterson side very blue collar and dense (2012 census states that between Madison Ave in Eastside-Riverside and River Rd in Paterson-Memorial Park-Hendersonville/W.Moreland-Columbia Heights lives the densest blue-collar population in the State of NJ, as well as North Paterson-Bunker Hill-Haledon-Prospect Park area, with a few blocks of Hawthorne included also) and with the eastern Paramus-Glen Rock side more suburban and white collar. The addresses (3-06, etc) are the old "Urban Housing System" of neighborhoods, with Queens, Nyc, and Paterson being the only areas to have them. The first number is a "Community Number" and the second number after the dash is a house number (eg; I lived in the Paterson-Memorial Park Section. For that neighborhood, which was built as an "inner city extension" neighborhood, has a community number that states how many blocks you are from the Temple Emanuel Synagogue on the corner of 33rd st [morlot ave] and Martin Luther King Way [Broadway], as the community was built around it. So if my address is 4-07, i'm 4 blocks from the Temple, and my house number is 07. All of Paterson is set up this way, with dashes, except Hawthorne, Woodland Park and Elmwood park, which weren't originally "cities" or "boros" and were independant suburbs (Townships, much like Wayne) and were never part of Paterson at all, as they still to this day have no bridges connecting them to the "inner city" and have to go through either 1 of Fairlawns 5 bridges or Prospect Parks 1 bridge). There has always been a significant Jewish and Neapolitan (ethnicity of Italian) and Spanish (Euro, Arg, etc) as well as many other ethnicities (45% Jewish, 19% Italian [mostly Neapolitans] and 11% American Spanish [from carribbean and s america] and Euro Spanish) in Eastside Paterson, so when Fairlawn was finalized as an urban boro made up of Paterson and the old "Saddle River Township (approx. east of the Urban Bergen train tracks)" in via 1930, why would it change? Because they changed the name As it is, the older, more densely populated western flank had to change its zip code from an Eastside zipcode to Saddle River Townships zip code because eve though 2/3rds of the boro lived in the 07514 zip, 2/3rds of the land mass was 07410 and already had a centralized post office in Radburn so it was easier to expand off of 07410 than the VERY densely populated 07514)? You can change zips, block numbers, etc, the people are still the same, and always will be because Paterson and Passaic are held in VERY high regard in Italy, Eastern Europe, and the Jewish populations of the world, with Paterson being home of the Galleanisti Anarchists, Sacco and Vanzetti and Gaetano Bresci (who went back to Italy and killed King Umberto alla Manza in 1908), as well as prominant Jewish Socialists Alan Ginsberg, Emma Goldman, and the I.W.W. union, etc, which is why Eastern Europeans flock to Northern-Eastside Paterson-Fairlawn and the old Passaic area of Passaic-Garfield-Wallington. Because it has ALWAYS been that way.

[rocknrooler]

As for safety, it is really personal opinion. I moved to Paterson-Memorial Park section in 1985 from the Lower East Side of Manhattan, and it WAS NOT fun, nor was it safe (ESPECIALLY from McClean/1st St to 6th/River Rc). By 1991, I had 2 bikes stolen from me at knife point, 1 bike stolen by having a screwdriver to my throat, as well as having a bike stolen from my front yard after going inside for not even a full minute for a drink). As an electricisn in the area, I have many co-workers and a few customers who say the same thing. I installed "Yankee Stadium" security lights for a woman on 4th St who at 3:35 in the afternoon was followed home from Shop-Rite only to be punched and kicked in front of her house and her groceries robbed, or my buddy on 3rd St by Berdan whose wife answered the door at 1:30 in the afternoon to a man saying he was there to "fix her computer". She told the man that her computer WAS messed up, but her husband never notified her that someone was coming. After telling him to hokd on while she called her husband, the man kicked to door open, jumped ontop of her and tried to tie her up. For what no one knows because unemployed neighbors heard her and stepped in until police arrived. It is typical, or st least WAS typical for people tovwake up in the middle of the night to see someobe holdibg a gun at them over their bed while another rauded closets and drawers, not to mention the robberies of stores by local kids, most notably Krausers and Farmer and the Deli, which had laxed security. As for families with kids, if you are a kid and live in Paterson-Memorial, Hendersonville/W. Moreland-Columbia Heights, you are "criminalized" by lical law enforcement and become a target if you venture out of your section, meaning for Paterson-Memorial kids going East of River Rd, for Hendersonville going over rte 208 to Radburn, and for Columbia Heights (which has it the worst from local police as well as Hawthorne and Glen Rock) going West of Lafeyette Ave in Hawthorne, North of 208 into Glen Rock, or South of Maple Ave (unless you stay West of River Rd in the Paterson-Memorial area). Growing up, nearly every kid I knew was eithet in juvey, Conklinhouse, or Psychiatric Wards (St. Josephs), which is why they opened up Thomas Jefferson Middle School agsin (which was closed when Fairlawn was created out of Eastsidr-Riverside and Saddle River Township) because wealthier "homeowner" kids were emulating these kids and it started to spill over into Radburn, Warren Point and Lyncrest (East of River Rd/St Annes area), most notably by "the Rabb" children of Radburn who brought the culture East of River Rd. As for now, Eastside Paterson-Riverside-Bunker Hill crime is down, so obviously crime is not what is was in the 80s and 90s ANYWHERE. I have very bad memories of thst area, and as someone who lived on St Josepgs in Lodi for a few years, would feel MUCH safer ther than in the Paterson area of Fsirlawn (except for the Lyncrest section around St Annes, which is not really s PATERSON-Paterson section as it is an extension of the wealthiest neighborhood along the River, Upper Eastside-Eastside Park-Manor section of the Paterson Robberbarons and must have alot of money to live between Morlot and Broadway). But who nowadays would spend the money to live in the "safer" areas of the city when other areas have more land, more parks, and more modern houses for the price?

[radburn resident]

Regarding Fair Lawn, not much has changed in the past several years since this thread started. I have been here for 20 years now.

The housing mix is primarily 50's and 60's capes and splits, but some of the older areas have prewar colonials and such. There are some larger houses, but the majority are modest on 65x100 lots.

The Radburn Association section is a planned garden community HOA which was founded in 1929. Most of the lots within the HOA are even smaller than the post-war lots, there are detached, semi-attached and attached rows. However, many of the owners are fiercely loyal to the community, some of my neighbors have been in their houses for 40-50 years and the HOA controls exterior changes so that overall the neighborhood retains pretty much the same look over the long haul. Radburn has private facilities and programs for the kids and a unique system of parks and footpaths that make it particularly family friendly.

As to ethnic mix, Fair Lawn is mainly Italian, Irish, Jewish, Russian, Dutch/American and a small percentage of everything else. This varies to some degree in each primary school district. As to Jewish, not nearly as concentrated as in Teaneck or Englewood.

There are 6 primary schools K-5, 2 middle 6-8 and 1 high, as well as several private preschools, daycare and other private schools.

Mostly white collar/working class, many people take NJ Transit rail and bus to jobs in NY. Fair Lawn was actually one of the early developers of commercial campuses in the 1950s and while some industry remains it has been declining and replaced with housing as of late.

Housing prices in 2015 is about 1/3 less than during the peak years $300-450K typical range, much less than Glen Rock or Ridgewood about on par with Saddle Brook.