Spring 2004 Edition

Radburn History:  Construction Begins   This is the second part of Evelyn McHugh's series on the history of Radburn.  See article in previous edition.   The developers of Radburn expected it to become the largest city in Bergen County.  At the time, most towns in western Bergen had just a few thousand inhabitants. People were more than outnumbered by livestock.   While the real work began in April, a symbolic groundbreaking for the Radburn project was held on July 30, 1928.   Land tracts put together for the planned city at the start totaled almost 1,000 acres. Virtually all of this was farmland, in parcels of 20 to 74 acres. Most of it had changed hands in the previous 150 years only two or three times. One of the farms had remained in the same family since the issuance of a royal patent almost 200 years before.  By the time Radburn would celebrate its fiftieth anniversary, the farms of Fair Lawn would be extinct.   In the fall of 1928, the first industries, The American Radiator Company, and Central Supply Company announced their intent to build facilities within Radburn. Other businesses soon announced plans to join them.  By March of 1929, construction in Radburn had advanced to the point where some homes would soon be ready for sale.   The City Housing Corporation planned for Radburn to have an independent authority to manage Radburn concerns – mostly the public areas of the development - while still falling under the governmental authority of the Borough of Fair Lawn. This managing authority would need office space. One large building was almost completed in the part of the development set aside for storefronts and offices – the Radburn Plaza Building – but the intent of the developers was to use the space not devoted to business for community services and recreation. Within the Plaza Building the developers had set aside public meeting spaces and theater, a woodworking shop, and space for other organizations not yet determined. They had not included offices for the town management in the final plans for the building.   An opportunity presented itself to City Housing when the former farmer’s cooperative organization, called a “grange” decided that they no longer needed their building. Grange Hall, like hundreds of others, had served the farming community as a place where livestock and produce prices were tracked. Built by the participating farmers in 1909, it had served as a social hall as well as a gathering place for the grange members. Twenty years later, the advent of radio allowed prices on the commodities market to be followed without the farmer leaving home to go to the grange hall. The declining numbers of farmers had also eroded the use of the hall as a public meeting place. So, on March 20, 1929, the sale of the Grange Hall to City Housing Corporation was announced in the New York Times by the firm of Borg, Rusch & Boyd, Inc., the brokers for the Radburn properties. The Radburn Management Association was born.  (The Association still has its offices at the Grange Hall, located at the corner of Fair Lawn Avenue and Radburn Road).    All of north and western Bergen County had begun to be part of a rush to create homes outside of New York City.  As construction continued in Radburn, the rest of Fair Lawn also continued to be developed. In April 1929, the New York Times carried news of the sale of the Ernest A. Formann homestead of more than ten acres fronting on Morlot Avenue and the Passaic River. Containing a “mansion” of more than twenty-four rooms, it was sold to Daniel D. Hymes. Like much of the Victorian era homes formerly in Fair Lawn, this house would subsequently be demolished and the property subdivided and developed.   Regional development was considered so essential, it was “front page” news - on June 23, 1929 , a headline on Page 1 of the Times announced the Regional Planning Association was calling for 43 different projects to be completed as possible. The projects included the Triborough Bridge, and suburban rail links from and to Hackensack in Bergen County .   On Page 149 of the Times that same day, the City Housing Corporation announced: First Settlers Move Into Radburn Homes.  According to the article, 104 of the 175 Radburn homes in the first building phase were completed, and all of the remainder under construction less than 10 months after the project broke ground. 45 people in 12 families had already moved into their new homes. Names mentioned in the list of new homeowners include several moving to Radburn from Paterson and employees and associates of The City Housing Corporation.   The announcement also carried the news that the Radburn Plaza Building was a few weeks away from the opening of the first ten stores.   In July, as those merchants prepared to begin business, City Housing heralded the planned building of 160 more homes along Owen Avenue and the south side of Fair Lawn Avenue in 1930. It also included a group of stores to be built on Plaza Road, south of Fair Lawn Avenue.    By January 1, 1930, City Housing had spent an estimated three million dollars on construction, and planned to spend an additional 1.5 million dollars on the newly announced plans. (Remember, the initial estimated coast for the entire project for a city of 25,000 people was supposed to be $2 million!)   Radburn was beginning to resemble a town – brickwork on the Abbott Court Apartments, designed to house 92 families, was already up to the roof line, and the new Erie train station was under construction and expected to open by Labor Day. Along with added train service, City Housing had arranged extended bus routes from Edgewater to the old Radburn station building, and ten-minute bus service to downtown Paterson.   Even as The City Housing Corporation began to feel the first tightening of the Depression, the project called Radburn continued to grow.   Barely nine months after the Stock Market crash of October 1929, City Housing was talking of the demand for additional small homes in Radburn. On July 13, 1930, a press release in the Times spoke of 115 new structures under construction. Seventy-five of them were single-family homes on Beekman, Ballard, Bristol, and Bedford Places. An additional twenty duplex town homes designed by Clarence Stein were also under construction.   Bridge over Fair Lawn Ave. and tunnel under Howard Ave.   By this time, Radburn had 700 residents, an active citizen’s association, and would soon have its own public school. The train station in Radburn, in response to the demand of the business professionals who made up many of the residents, had added 5 additional daily trains. A pool now open in the North Park would soon be matched by a pool in the South Park.  And the residents who wanted to use the new pools would be able to cross over Fair Lawn Avenue by means of a rustic wooden footbridge included in the pedestrian safety plan designed by the architects and approved by Fair Lawn .   The bridge would be completed by the first anniversary of the Stock Market crash. So would a pedestrian underpass at Howard Avenue.  The first two superblocks of the planned community were almost complete.   Continued in Part 3:  The Real Estate Market Collapses    Thanks to Jarvis Rodriguez for the photos.