Fair Lawn is a borough in Bergen County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey, and a bedroom suburb located northwest of New York City. As of the 2020 United States census, the borough's population was 34,927, an increase of 2,470 (+7.6%) from the 2010 census count of 32,457, which in turn reflected an increase of 820 (+2.6%) from the 31,637 counted in the 2000 census.Table 7. Population for the Counties and Municipalities in New Jersey: 1990, 2000 and 2010, New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development, February 2011. Accessed May 1, 2023.
Fair Lawn was incorporated as a borough by an act of the New Jersey Legislature on March 6, 1924, as "Fairlawn", from portions of Saddle River Township.Snyder, John P. The Story of New Jersey's Civil Boundaries: 1606-1968, Bureau of Geology and Topography; Trenton, New Jersey; 1969. p. 77. Accessed May 18, 2012. The name was taken from Fairlawn, David Acker's estate home, that was built in 1865 and later became the Fair Lawn Municipal Building.Dutch Door Genealogy - Bergen County New Jersey Municipalities, accessed February 9, 2006.Hutchinson, Viola L. The Origin of New Jersey Place Names, New Jersey Public Library Commission, May 1945. Accessed August 30, 2015. Name is shown as "Ackerson". In 1933, the official spelling of the borough's name was split into its present two-word form as "Fair Lawn" Borough.
Radburn, one of the first planned communities in the United States, is an unincorporated community located within Fair Lawn and was founded in 1929 as "a town for the motor age."About , Radburn Association. Accessed September 16, 2017. "Radburn, a planned community, was started in 1929 by the City Housing Corporation from the plans developed by Clarence Stein and Henry Wright." Fair Lawn is home to a large number of commuters to New York City, to which it is connected by train from two railroad stations on NJ Transit's Bergen County Line, the Radburn and Broadway stations.
Fair Lawn's motto is "A great place to visit and a better place to live."Leggate, Jim. "Fair Lawn Ranked No. 7 in NJ For Job Seekers; Fair Lawn has received numerous accolades this year.", Fair Lawn - Saddle Brook Patch, November 19, 2013. Accessed November 1, 2014. "Fair Lawn's motto is that it's 'a great place to visit and a better place to live.
History and historical significance The first settlers of Fair Lawn were members of the Lenape tribe, of Native Americans, a group of hunter gatherers who eventually sold their land to incoming Dutch and Irish settlers and migrated to Pennsylvania. The new colonists turned the region, part of the New Barbadoes Township, into five large farm lots, conjoined by two main roads—Paramus and Saddle River—and named it "slooterdam" (after a V-shaped sluice-like fishing weir built in the Passaic River by the Lenni Lenape). The name stuck until 1791. In the 1800s, these five lots became nine smaller lots, and three new roads—Fair Lawn Avenue, Lincoln Avenue, and Prospect Street—were constructed to encourage mobility between them. Eighty houses were built by 1861, and the renamed Small Lots, now a part of the Saddle River Township and home to multiple vegetable and fruit farms and dairies, became an agricultural community. Berdan Avenue, a new road located near five Berdan family farms, was soon added and Victorian homes were built alongside it and in nearby areas. The grandest of the estates, perched atop a hill by Small Lots Road was David Acker's estate "Fairlawn", from which the township gets its name (Images of America, Page 7) and is now the site of the borough's library.
Rapid suburban development of the town occurred in three sections: the River Road–Fair Lawn Avenue area known as "Memorial Park", the area at Lincoln Avenue and Wagaraw Road known as "Columbus Heights", and the area east of the railroad and south of Broadway, known as Warren Point. The development of this section was catalyzed by the "establishment of a post office, a railroad station, and a trolley to the Hudson River" (Images of America, Page 8).
In the 1900s, Fair Lawn residents were displeased about the schooling situation as part of Saddle River Township; the schools were either dilapidated or too far away for Fair Lawn residents, and citizens felt that they were not getting schools comparable to the tax money they were paying. As such, a movement to separate from Saddle River Township was born. Fair Lawn residents petitioned to the state, asking to incorporate as an independent borough, and in April 1924, the borough of Fair Lawn was voted into existence.
Fair Lawn is home to the following eight sites listed on the National Register of Historic Places:New Jersey and National Registers of Historic Places - Bergen County, New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection Historic Preservation Office, last updated November 20, 2017. Accessed November 23, 2017. Peter Garretson House, 4-02 River Road (1974)National Register of Historic Places Inventory - Nomination Form for Peter Garretson House, National Park Service. Accessed September 16, 2017. Irregular pattern between Radburn Road and the Erie Rail Road tracks in Radburn (1975) G.V.H. Berdan House, 1219 River Road (1983) Richard J. Berdan House, 2407 Fair Lawn Avenue Cadmus-Folly House, 19-21 Fair Lawn Avenue Naugle House, 42-49 Dunkerhook Road – Built in the 1750s, the house was acquired by the borough.Diduch, Mary. "Fair Lawn to fix historic Naugle House", The Record, July 16, 2014, backed up by the Internet Archive as of August 15, 2014. Accessed September 16, 2017. "The council allocated $1,800 from its municipal open-space fund to fix the Naugle House. The stone residence, purchased by the borough in 2010, was built in the 1750s. It sits next to the Jacob Vanderbeck Jr. House – also known as the Vander Plaat House — another Colonial-era home that is not borough-owned." Jacob Vanderbeck Jr. House, 41-25 Dunkerhook Road – Constructed in 1754, the house was named by Preservation New Jersey as one of New Jersey's 10 most endangered historic placesPries, Allison. "Fair Lawn home named one of N.J.'s 10 most endangered historic places", The Record, May 22, 2013. Accessed May 28, 2017. "An 18th Century Dutch stone house that the borough declined last year to purchase has been named one of the state's 10 most endangered historic places by Preservation New Jersey. ... The Jacob Vanderbeck Jr. House, also known as the Vander Plaat House, located off Dunkerhook Road sits on a three-acre parcel near the Naugle House – another Revolutionary War-era home that Fair Lawn purchased in 2010 for $1.7 million using municipal and county open space funds and state Green Acres money. The single-story home overlooking the Saddle River was built in 1754 and remained in the Vanderbeck family until 1800."Jacob Vanderbeck Jr. House , Preservation New Jersey. Accessed September 16, 2017. Radburn station, Pollitt Drive (1984)
Other sites, in addition to those listed above, are also considered historic by the Historic Sites Survey Committee of the Bergen County Historic Sites Advisory Board, including:"New Jersey Register of Historic Places Listings and Other Determinations as of April 5, 2013 with Recommendations for Listing on the Register by the Staff of the Bergen County Historic Sites Survey, 1986, updated through June 10, 2013" Bergen County, New Jersey, June 10, 2013. Accessed June 19, 2016. Henry A. Hopper House George Washington School (Recommended as a National Register possibility, but needs further documentation) Fair Lawn, Berdan, and Prospect Avenues, Plaza and Radburn Roads Peter Demarest House on Fair Lawn Avenue Warren Bronze and Aluminum Factory on Second Street
In July 1982, an NJ Transit train derailed and crashed into a pasta factory, killing the train's engineer. The derailment resulted from a group of teens who had tampered with the tracks. Two of the five youths charged with the crime were convicted of manslaughter for their roles in the incident and were given five-year sentences in a state correctional facility.Higgs, Larry. "The deadliest train crashes in New Jersey history", NJ Advance Media for NJ.com, November 27, 2017. Accessed February 16, 2018. "An engineer was killed on July 7, 1982, when a commuter train operated by Conrail for NJ Transit crashed into a pasta factory after it derailed in Fair Lawn. Teenagers who tampered with a track switch were blamed for the crash. After the train was diverted from the Bergen Line and ran off the end of an industrial rail siding, the lead car traveled 60 feet into the building, killing the engineer and seriously injuring a 14-year-old boy, according to the National Transportation Safety Board."
Geography According to the United States Census Bureau, the borough had a total area of 5.22 square miles (13.53 km2), including 5.14 square miles (13.30 km2) of land and 0.09 square miles (0.23 km2) of water (1.70%).
The borough borders Paterson (in Passaic County, across the Passaic River) to the west; Hawthorne across Lincoln Avenue to the West; Glen Rock across Harristown Road, Maple Avenue, the northern border of the former Nabisco plant and its extension north of Garwood Road and Naugle Drive to the north; Ridgewood across the Saddle River to the northeast; Paramus across the Saddle River to the east; Rochelle Park across another point in the Saddle River to the southeast; with Saddle Brook across the two longer portions of South Broadway and their extensions through Rosario Court to the south; and Elmwood Park across the Bergen County Line, New Jersey Route 4 (Broadway), Cyril Avenue and Willow Street to the south.Areas touching Fair Lawn, MapIt. Accessed March 25, 2020.Bergen County Map of Municipalities, Bergen County, New Jersey. Accessed March 25, 2020.New Jersey Municipal Boundaries, New Jersey Department of Transportation. Accessed November 15, 2019. The hills of Wyckoff are visible from the northern neighborhoods of Fair Lawn.
Neighborhoods Fair Lawn is an incorporated collection of diverse neighborhoods, each with its own distinct character and vibe. Unincorporated communities, localities and place names located partially or completely within the borough include:Locality Search, State of New Jersey. Accessed May 21, 2015.
Berdan Grove, a residential neighborhood of single-family homes behind Thomas Jefferson Middle School, surrounding Berdan Grove Park on Berdan Avenue. This neighborhood is home to the borough's highest concentration of Asian Americans and includes Milnes Elementary School. Broadway District contains the major commercial thoroughfare of Broadway and houses the Broadway District commuter stop for NJ Transit's Bergen County Line train. Roughly located around the Warren Point and Lyncrest areas, the district also extends as far as Morlot Avenue along the tracks, roughly around or a little after Glen Rock Lumber, housing many industries on Banta Place. The Broadway District is mainly a shopping district as it contains many stores, eateries, hobby centers, salons, and other businesses. Not only is it the largest stretch of stores within Fair Lawn, it also houses one of the highest densities of nail and beauty salons in the United States. The Broadway District stretches from the Route 4 split with Route 208 and continues all through Fair Lawn and includes a few blocks of Elmwood Park. Broadway also hosts the route of local Paterson-New York Spanish Transportation minibuses, known locally as guaguas, as a cheaper alternative for commuters to and from New York. It is one of only a handful of Bergen-Passaic-Hudson districts that even offers this service.