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Close to the City, but With a Life of Its Own
by VERA HALLER
Sept. 7, 2012
DIVERSE AND AFFORDABLE Fort Lee’s Main
Street features potted flowers and a V.F.W. post.
But the Bergen County
borough also has the ethnic diversity of a New York City neighborhood.
AFTER 13 years in a house in Oradell, N.J.,
Florence Fleischman and her husband, Glenn, were ready to return to high-rise
living. In May, the couple moved back to the same Fort Lee
apartment building where they had lived as newlyweds and raised two children,
now teenagers, through toddlerhood.
“My husband and I were ready
to downsize and get closer to the city, and the kids didn’t need that yard
anymore,” said Ms. Fleischman, a lawyer. “It’s a nice community and an easy
place to live.”
That assessment might not be
the impression of Fort Lee held by many New
Yorkers, who know it as a tangle of arteries, toll plazas and traffic they pass
entering and leaving the city. It is the western terminus of the George Washington
Bridge, which feeds into
major highways such as Interstate 80, the New Jersey Turnpike and the Palisades Interstate Parkway.
But the borough of 35,345
residents on 2.5 square miles is more than that. Radiating to the north and
south of the bridge are neighborhoods, shopping strips and a small-town Main Street with
hanging flowerpots, a post office and a V.F.W. post.
Fort
Lee
has the suburban feel of a New Jersey town with the ethnic diversity of a New York City neighborhood. Some residents call it the city’s
sixth borough. Kenneth Kang, 26, said proximity to Midtown Manhattan, where he works in finance, was the main reason he
bought a one-bedroom condominium here. Another factor was the area’s cultural
diversity.
According to the 2010 census,
38.4 percent of Fort Lee’s population is
Asian. Nearly a quarter of the residents are Korean. Along Main Street, a hardware store and pharmacy
share space with a Chinese restaurant, a new Korean chicken place and an Asian
bakery. In the Linwood
Plaza strip mall, space
formerly filled by a Kings supermarket now holds a Korean Super H Mart.
Fort Lee, which is a borough
in Bergen County, expects big changes in its
downtown business area in the next couple of years. Two ambitious development
projects have been approved by the Fort Lee Planning Board for empty lots — 16
acres of dirt and weeds — just south of the bridge.
On the eastern lot, SJP Residential Properties plans to build the Modern, two 47-story towers, each with 450 rental
apartments. The project includes a restaurant, park and space for a municipal
museum and theater. Work is expected to start in October, the company said in a
statement.
Some residents raised
concerns during the approval process that the developments would exacerbate
traffic and lead to overcrowding at schools, but community leaders said they
were needed to revitalize Fort Lee’s downtown.
Ila Kasofsky, a Fort Lee
councilwoman and an associate broker of Prominent Properties Sotheby’s
International Realty, said many residents leave town to shop, heading to Whole
Foods and Target in Edgewater or to malls in Paramus.
The new developments “will become the center of business and life in Fort Lee,” she said
WHAT YOU’LL FIND
The tall apartment buildings
that rise from the bluff overlooking the Hudson River are Fort
Lee’s most visible form of housing. The buildings — a mix of
co-ops and condos — have views of the city and amenities like parking and
concierge services.
Ms. Fleischman bought a
three-bedroom co-op in Mediterranean
Towers West, where years earlier, she had
met her husband at the outdoor pool. She was visiting her mother, who still
lives there, and her husband was a resident.
The transition back has gone
well. She and her husband have shorter and less expensive commutes to the city.
The children enjoy the building’s gym.
Fort Lee also has neighborhoods like Coytesville, north of the
bridge, made up of single- and multifamily houses on small lots. Also on that
side of town is Linwood
Park, a 1,170-unit co-op
complex consisting of low brick buildings on a tree-filled campus. The units
are affordable (a two-bedroom co-op can be had for around $200,000, according
to Nelson Chen of the Chen Agency) and are served by express bus service to Manhattan.
To the south of the bridge
are other neighborhoods with single-family homes. The Palisades is a leafy area
with older Capes and bungalows and larger,
newly constructed homes. Abbott
Boulevard, tree lined with a grassy median strip,
is a popular jogging route.
Closer to the river is the
Bluff, Fort Lee’s most exclusive neighborhood, with some stunning properties
built directly on the cliff overlooking the Hudson. The area has an eclectic mix of older
colonials and Tudors and newer Mediterranean-style villas. On the aptly named Arcadian Way,
passers-by can peek through gates to multimillion-dollar homes with sweeping
lawns and unobstructed views of Manhattan’s
skyline.
WHAT YOU’LL PAY
The housing market in Fort Lee is unusual for its extreme range in selection
and price. In late August, the New
Jersey Multiple Listings Service showed 496 Fort
Lee properties, including a studio just north of the bridge for
$39,900 and a three-bedroom house in the Bluff for $3.4 million. In the middle,
listings included a five-bedroom 1950s contemporary for $748,888 and a
one-bedroom condo in a high rise for $388,000.
According to Mr. Chen, the
median price of houses sold in Fort Lee
through August was $245,000, versus $283,000 in 2009 and $290,000 in 2008. Ms.
Kasofsky said that as housing prices have come down, properties were moving.
“The inventory that has been priced realistically has sold,” she said.
Ms. Kasofsky said the market
for rental properties was active as well. She recently helped a couple with
three young children find a six-bedroom home for $6,500 a month, giving them
significantly more space for their money than the apartment they had been
renting on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.
But Mr. Chen noted that real
estate deals alone were not enough to bring a New Yorker over the bridge. “A
true New Yorker doesn’t move to Fort Lee,” he
said. “They’ll live in a studio apartment if that’s all they can afford to be
in the center of it all. The people who move to Fort Lee like the pace of New Jersey with the easy access to Manhattan.”
He said Fort Lee also is home
to a number of New Jersey
commuters who find it convenient because of the highways that pass through the
town.
WHAT TO DO
An outing often consists of a
meal at one of Fort Lee’s many ethnic
restaurants. But there are also ways to burn off the Korean barbecue and dim
sum dumplings. Residents have easy access to Palisades
Interstate Park for hiking along the Hudson, and the Fort Lee Historic Park has additional trails and overlooks. A point of
pride among residents is the Jack
Alter Fort Lee Community Center with its full schedule of
classes, concerts and outdoor movies in the summer. A Sunday farmers’ market is
held at the community center during the warmer months. Fort
Lee also recently got its first dog run.
THE SCHOOLS
The Borough of Fort Lee has a
single school district with four elementary schools numbered 1 through 4, the Lewis F. Cole Middle School and Fort Lee High School, which has 981 students. Its average SAT scores,
according to the New Jersey State Department of Education 2011 School Report
Card, were math 557, verbal 515 and essay 538. According to the report card,
the scores were higher than the statewide average of 517, 493 and 496.
THE COMMUTE
Fort Lee is served by several
New Jersey Transit bus lines, some ending at the Port Authority bus terminal in
Midtown and others that cross the George Washington Bridge to the Port
Authority bridge terminal at West 178th Street. There, riders can transfer to
the A subway train and city buses. According to the New Jersey Transit
schedule, morning rush-hour buses to Midtown take about 45 to 55 minutes. A
monthly bus pass from the intersection of Main Street and Anderson Avenue costs $136 and single
rides are $4.25.
Another option is the NY
Waterway ferry from Edgewater; a monthly pass is $293.75 and single rides
$10.25. The Fort Lee Parking Authority runs a shuttle bus to the ferry from the
main municipal lot during rush hours.
THE HISTORY
Fort Lee, named after Gen.
Charles Lee, was fortified in 1776 during the British campaign to control New York City and the Hudson River.
When Fort Washington,
across the Hudson, fell in November of that
year, American troops retreated across the river, scaling the Palisades cliffs
to Fort Lee, where Gen. George Washington began the army’s retreat across New Jersey. Exhibits at
the visitors’ center at Fort Lee
Historic Park
describe the Revolutionary War events.
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