Radburn's 'front yard'
From Plaza Field to 'Plaza Greene'
The lot at Fair Lawn Avenue and Plaza Road, the site of a strip shopping center now slated to be replaced by a mixed-use commercial development, was once Radburn’s front yard.
In the crimped years of the Great Depression and World War II, the grassy lot known as Plaza Field hosted ballgames, pet parades, scout encampments, awards ceremonies and other affordable diversions.
After the war, Plaza Field became the site of a futuristic supermarket that anchored what is now, exactly 75 years later, the tired shopping center that awaits the wrecking ball.
The lot’s next iteration will be the home of “Plaza Greene,” a four-story building with 145 apartments and a Sprouts grocery store.
Because of its height, Plaza Greene will bring at least one important change.
Ever since Radburn’s beginning in 1929, anyone arriving by train was welcomed by the sight of the community’s symbol: the Plaza Building clock tower. And for decades, the open field facilitated an architectural conversation between the stone Dutch colonial train station and the brick Georgian colonial commercial building.
The architects of the two buildings – Clarence Stein designed the station, Frederick Ackerman the Plaza Building – designed many of Radburn’s houses. (They also lived in the same building on Central Park West.)
But soon the view will be blocked, and the landmarks’ visual conversation silenced.
In the shade
In 1927, City Housing Corporation of New York purchased the site, along with hundreds of other rural acres, for a radical new community called Radburn.
According to a visionary design by City Housing’s landscape architect, Marjorie Sewell Cautley, the lot between the station and the Plaza building would become one of the nation’s first parking lots.
Years later, Cautley set down her reasoning in a planning journal article. Sitting in the sun, she wrote in The American City, “rows of shiny black cars gleam as if fitted with small mirrors.’’ But if parking lots had trees, “the parking space will become a shady, restful grove under which cars will keep cool, instead of blistering their paint and roasting their tired occupants.’’
Cautley’s design, later all but forgotten, anticipated ordinances (like those first introduced in California in the 1980s) to advance such environmental principles.
City Housing’s financial woes after the stock market crash of 1929 ended those plans. That’s when the empty lot became Plaza Field, site of countless games – softball, football, maybe even cricket (Radburn had a team). Sometimes commuters getting off the train at the end of the day would doff their suit jackets and watch the action – or join it.
There was always something going on:
September 3, 1932: “Radburn’s summer playground program closes on Labor Day with a field day. Awards will be presented to children on the basis of the number of points scored this summer for various activities.’’ – Paterson Morning Call.
July 6, 1936: ‘“B’ block was crowned first half champion of the Radburn Softball League when it defeated the ‘A’ Block in a closely contested contest at Plaza Field.’’ – Hackensack Record.
July 26, 1937: “Indifferent, well-behaved, large, small, ugly and handsome pets … including a monkey and a pony .. will parade with their owners this morning in the annual Radburn pet show at Plaza Field.’’ – Paterson Morning Call.
June 25, 1938: “Seventy-six scouts pitched their tents on Plaza Field for the second annual overnight celebration of the Fair Lawn troops, christened by the boys the ‘Scoutaree.’ The scouts prepared their own meals and participated in competitive events (including) fire lighting by friction, knot-tying and semaphore signaling.’’ – Ridgewood Herald.
After the war, City Housing’s corporate successor sold the lot to a developer as the site for a Grand Union supermarket, described by one newspaper when it opened in 1950 as “the most modern food department store in New Jersey.’’
Those who recall the cramped old market of the 1990s would hardly recognize that Grand Union, which stressed mechanization, automation and cleanliness.
According to Grand Union, “As a customer removes one of the several thousand different canned, glassed or packed items on the famous Food-o-Mat (conveyor belt), a fresh replacement slides into view by gravity. This reduces a customer’s walking by two-thirds. … Since it is loaded from the rear, there’s more aisle space for shoppers.’’
The store’s “Meateria’’ was described as “a time-saving device for self-selection of meats. It provides a large, prepacked display of all cuts …transparently wrapped and labeled by weight and price and displayed for selection under refrigeration.’’
“It’s more fun than work to be in this store,’’ the grocery manager told the Ridgewood Herald-News.
But the market closed more than a quarter century ago, and the L-shaped shopping center aged poorly, as absentee owners inexplicably failed either to renovate or sell.
Now the shopping center, largely vacant and anchored by a Dollar Tree discount store, is to be torn down and replaced by Plaza Greene.
There is one bit of historical irony: In Fair Lawn, developers these days are required to emphasize shade, and to have a landscaping plan – including trees, shrubs and ground cover – subject to review by the borough Shade Tree Advisory Committee.
Somewhere, Marjorie Sewell Cautley is smiling.
Great piece. Unfortunately there's not going to be much green in Plaza Greene.