Edgewater is a borough located along the Hudson River in Bergen County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 United States census, the borough's population was 14,336, an increase of 2,823 (+24.5%) from the 2010 census count of 11,513, which in turn reflected an increase of 3,836 (+50.0%) from the 7,677 counted in the 2000 censusTable 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.
The borough's history has featured the founding of the first colony in Bergen County, contribution to the Revolutionary War, a period as a "sleepy, pastoral little town"Hall, Donald E. / Edgewater Cultural & Historical Committee Images of America: Edgewater, p. 63. Arcadia Publishing, 2005. Charleston, South Carolina. . Accessed October 6, 2015. with resort hotels in the 19th century, industrialization in the early 20th century, and a transition to a rapidly growing residential community in the late 20th century.
Edgewater was incorporated as a municipality on December 7, 1894, from portions of Ridgefield Township as the Borough of Undercliff, based on the results of a referendum that passed two days earlier. The borough was formed during the "Boroughitis" phenomenon then sweeping through Bergen County, in which 26 boroughs were formed in the county in 1894 alone.Harvey, Cornelius Burnham. Genealogical History of Hudson and Bergen Counties, New Jersey, p. 11, New Jersey Genealogical Publishing Company, 1900. Accessed September 15, 2013. "For a period of sixteen years following the passage of this act few boroughs were organized in the State, only three of them being in Bergen County.... As it was twenty-six boroughs were created in the county from January 23, 1894, to December 18, of the same year." The borough's name was changed to Edgewater on November 8, 1899.Snyder, John P. The Story of New Jersey's Civil Boundaries: 1606-1968, Bureau of Geology and Topography; Trenton, New Jersey; 1969. Accessed May 1, 2026."History of Bergen County" Vol. 1, p. 353. The borough was named for its location on the Hudson River.Hutchinson, Viola L. The Origin of New Jersey Place Names, New Jersey Public Library Commission, May 1945. Accessed Accessed May 1, 2026.
History Algonquian people, primarily Lenape, lived in the area prior to Dutch colonisation in the 17th century. David Pietersz Devries (also transliterated as David Pietersen de Vries), the first European settler, bought of land from the Tappan tribe and established the settlement of Vriessendael in what is now Edgewater.Ruttenber, Edward Manning. History of the Indian Tribes of Hudson's River: Their Origin, Manners and Customs, Tribal and Sub-tribal Organizations, Wars, Treaties, Etc., (Hope Farm Press, 3rd ed, 2001) A historical plaque placed in Veteran's Field by the Bergen County Historical Society names Vriessendael as the first known colony in Bergen County with a founding date of 1640. Parts of Vriessendael were destroyed in 1643 during Kieft's War in reprisal for the massacres of Lenape people taking refuge at Pavonia and Corlears Hook. In pioneer days, River Road was known as the Hackensack Turnpike,Hall, Edgewater, p. 9. and Ox [sic] Hill Road was an important route to the top of the Palisades Cliff. While Oxen Hill Road still exists as a thoroughfare, another Colonial hallmark and major local industry has only recently disappeared: shad fishing. The Undercliff section in the northern section of Edgewater was originally a colony of fishermen.Adams, Hudson River Guidebook, p. 101 In the 1980s there were still about 100 commercial fishermen in New Jersey harvesting shad from their annual spring run from the Atlantic Ocean up the Hudson River to spawn. Now there are none.Westergaard, Barbara. New Jersey: A Guide to the State, p. 86. Rutgers University Press, 2006. . Accessed October 6, 2015.
Etienne Burdett began ferry service between north Edgewater and the island of Manhattan in 1758. His gambrel-roofed house in what is now the Edgewater Colony stood until 1899.Hall, Edgewater, p. 13 The ferry service at Burdett's Landing, which was located at the southern base of the bluff of Fort Lee, proved valuable to the American cause during the Revolutionary War. The ferry functioned as the link for supplies, information and transportation between Fort Lee on the New Jersey side of the Hudson River and Fort Washington on the New York side.Adams, Hudson River Guide, pp. 103, 104 In the century following the Revolutionary war, north Edgewater developed into a resort area with large hotels built in the mid- and late 19th century. It was in the 19th century that Burdett's Landing became known as "Old Stone Dock", as cobblestones quarried from the Palisades Cliffs by Russell & Read were shipped across the Hudson to fill the demand for paving Manhattan streets.Hall, Edgewater, p. 25. Concern over the destruction caused by quarrying operations led to the formation of the Palisades Interstate Park in 1900, which was effective in preserving the cliffs.History, Palisades Interstate Park Commission. Accessed December 4, 2013. "The two states had formed the Palisades Interstate Park Commission nine years earlier, in 1900, to preserve the famous Palisades cliffs from several large quarries that were blasting them for gravel and building material." Although the first chemical plant was founded in 1843 in the south section of the borough, throughout the 19th century the town retained a bucolic character. Early in the 20th century the addition of landfill to the Hudson River changed the borough's appearance. Until that time, the Hudson River lay closer to River Road from just above Veteran's field southward to what is now the Binghamton Ferry Plaza.Hall, Edgewater, p. 8.
The 20th century brought great change to Edgewater with industrialization, which overwhelmed the boroughHall, Edgewater, p. 49 and filled of the shoreline with its operations. Transportation of factory goods was facilitated when the New York, Susquehanna and Western Railway cut the Edgewater Tunnel through the Palisades in 1894 to connect the borough to its main line. Edgewater was also well situated for shipping, with deep water piers on the Hudson River and access to abundant labor from Manhattan. Generally, industrial development occurred in the southern end of the borough, while the northern end remained residential. As industrialization increased in the borough, picnic grounds lost their appeal and resort hotels faded.Hall, Edgewater, p. 21 By 1918, there were 8,044 workers employed by Edgewater's manufacturing facilities, producing primarily chemicals, dyes, and confectionery products such as oils and sugars. Prominent industries of Edgewater included a Ford assembly plant, Alcoa, Valvoline, and the American Can Company.Hall, Edgewater, p. 28 and pp. 33-37 Railroad trains served various factories, traversing tracks laid in River Road. During the first 30 years of the century, Edgewater's population quadrupled, and the transient workforce increased tenfold. Eventually the factories closed. The reasons were varied, but they included the globalization of industry, obsolete facilities and the replacement of railroad shipping by trucking, which could not run its large tractor trailer trucks on Edgewater's narrow streets.
Joseph Mitchell's essay The Rivermen, which was published in The New Yorker and is included in his book The Bottom of the Harbor, provides an evocative portrait of life in Edgewater in the early 20th century.Mitchell, Joseph. The Bottom of the Harbor, Random House, 2008. . Accessed October 9, 2013.
The late 20th century history of Edgewater was one of change from an industrialized town to a residential one. With the closing of the factories, development initially came to Edgewater in the 1960sHall, Edgewater, p. 70 and grew exponentially in the early 1980s, as developers began projects to convert the industrial sites that had historically led to Edgewater not being considered as an option for development.Daniels, Lee A. "Condominimum Rises Along Hudson in Edgewater, N.J.", The New York Times, June 11, 1982. Accessed December 4, 2013. "For years this small municipality (population: 4,600; size: three and a half miles by a quarter mile) seemed destined to be bypassed by the slow but steady march of high-rise office and residential development along the west bank of the Hudson River from West New York to Fort Lee." As condominiums were built along the Hudson where industry had formerly operated,Hall, Edgewater, p. 101 the population of Edgewater grew rapidly. The population had been mostly in the 4,000 to 5,000 range from 1930 to 1990, then increased by 50% to 7,677 in 2000 and again by 50% to 11,513 in the 2010 Census. Borough council members and residents acknowledge that population growth has exacerbated the problem of increased traffic. With the transition from industrial to residential, crime statistics were down, with the police chief describing how bar fights between factory workers were commonplace in the early 1970s,Cheslow, Jerry. "If You're Thinking of Living In: Edgewater; Factory Town Is Now Bedroom Community", The New York Times, July 30, 1995. Accessed December 4, 2013. "'When I joined the Edgewater Police Department 24 years ago, our work was mainly breaking up bar fights between factory workers,' said Donald A. Martin, chief of the 22-person police force. 'There was a bar on every corner and it was really a wild place. Now, the factories and bars are gone and the crime rate has dropped to near zero.'" while real estate values are up. Because of the expense of buying property, some currently refer to Edgewater as part of the Gold Coast. A photographic history of Edgewater describes the population and demographics change and its possible consequence this way: Now a good number of residents live on the river in condominiums and rental apartments and town houses on land that was once the province of heavy industry. Some see this as the creation of a town divided, with the newcomers living on the east side of River Road by the Hudson River and the old-timers living on the west side of River Road.
Although the borough is unrecognizable as the industrial town it once was, growing pains have left marks. When the old Alcoa plant site from 1916 began to be converted to condominiums, construction was forced to halt for cleanup of industrial contaminants, including excessively high concentrations of PCBs. In another case, construction of a condominium/shopping center in south Edgewater was interrupted for six months by safety measures to protect workers from chemical exposure in the lead- and arsenic-riddled soil. Next to this structure, behind a chain link fence lies a Superfund site. Operational Hess Oil tanks, beside the derelict Alcoa rolling mill, once the second-largest in the world, are a reminder of the borough's industrial phase. The building, occupying 1,100,000 square feet (100,000 m2) of space, was designed in 1914 and was used to roll ingots of aluminum into sheets that were used to create everything from toothpaste tubes to aircraft frames, before the facility was abandoned in 1967 due to lack of space needed to expand the facility.Hall, Edgewater, p. 28Barbanel, Josh. "A 'New Ft. Lee'? Some Say It Is Happening In Edgewater", The New York Times, April 8, 1979. Accessed September 13, 2017., NorthJersey.com, backed up by archive.is as of December 5, 2013. Accessed September 13, 2017. "Alcoa's huge aluminum plant was an Edgewater landmark and a centerpiece of its industrial era.... But with no room to expand, it closed in 1967 and sat vacant for three decades until it was demolished in the late 1990s in a project that included a cleanup of the PCBs that contaminated the site."
Geography