'The Battle of the Footbridge'
When and why Radburn lost a landmark
Radburn’s Fair Lawn Avenune footbridge, erected 1930
One of the most picturesque landmarks of early Radburn was the wooden footbridge over Fair Lawn Avenue that connected Radburn’s North and South sides, allowing children from the latter to walk safely to school.
For years, on our walking tours of historic Radburn, two of the most common questions have involved the overpass: When was it demolished? And why?
No one even seemed to know exactly where the footrbidge stood, much less agree on when and why it was removed. But our search of news archives showed that the footbridge was taken down in July 1952, just 22 years after its construction.
Why it was removed is a more complicated story -- and not a happy one for Radburn’s reputation as the pedestrian-friendly “Town for the Motor Age.’’
Safe for Children
The footbridge was erected in 1930, a little more than a year after the first families moved into Radburn. Although the new community’s tunnel under Howard Avenue, linking A and B Parks, would become its symbol, the footbridge was equally crucial in realizing Radburn’s often-advertised claim to be “Safe for Children.’’
Its opening made the October 19 edition of The New York Times, which reported that the new bridge was “a wooden truss-work structure of fir in natural wood finish, with ramps and shallow steps at either end.’’
The bridge stood about 120 yards east of Abbott Road, about halfway to Craig Road.
Before building the bridge, workers depressed Fair Lawn Avenue about two and a half feet to allow vehicle clearance while keeping the span low enough for comfortable pedestrian access.
The bridge papered over one of Radburn’s major flaws – a community designed to separate pedestrians and motor vehicles was in fact bisected by an increasingly busy county road.
But in 1948 the bridge’s access ramps were removed to allow construction of a garden apartment complex on Fair Lawn Avenue.
Ironically, the builder of the complex was Carl “Stan” Carlson, who had been assistant superintendent and construction manager for the City Housing Corporation, which built Radburn and its predecessor community, Sunnyside Gardens in Queens. Carlson himself had moved in 1929 from Sunnyside to 18 Aberdeen Place, becoming one of Radburn’s first residents.
Unlike most early Radburnites, who were college graduates, Carlson had only two years of high school. But in time he became a member of the Radburn board and founder of the Radburn Brick Company, which was located where The Crossings stand today.
After World War II, he became a successful real estate developer – albeit not one who observed the planning principles upon which Radburn was founded.
Footbridge and approach ramps (aerial photo). Fair Lawn Avenue runs horizontally at center
In 1948 his company, Carlson Construction, began building the Park Hill Homes apartment complex on Fair Lawn Avenue. To do so, he apparently obtained permission to temporarily remove the long access ramps to the bridge, rendering its span inaccessible.
Radburn residents were told that the approaches would be restored, and a right of way established to the bridge. Meanwhile, crossing guards were hired.
Save the bridge!
Around the same time -- coincidentally or otherwise -- the county told Fair Lawn officials that the bridge had been condemned. Carlson was to demolish it. But the Radburn Citizens Association, the Radrock Association and the Radburn School PTA, among others, insisted that the bridge be saved. They enlisted the support of Fair Lawn Mayor John Pollitt, who lived on Barry Place in Radburn. One newspaper called the controversy, “The Battle of the Footbridge.’’
Finally, the county said the bridge could stay if Carlson agreed to maintain it and assume liability. But no final agreement seems to have been reached.
Then, on the morning of March 9, 1949, a Radburn School first-grader named Howard Sufian was hit by a car while crossing Fair Lawn Avenue.
Although the boy was not seriously injured, the accident made clear the bridge’s importance. Less than two weeks later, on March 21, the span reopened. But now, instead of the gradually sloping ramps, the bridge had at each end staircases of about 25 steps – a much steeper climb.
The footbridge was denuded of its approach ramps in 1948 to make way for construction
There things stayed until the first week of July, 1952. Without fanfare, the bridge was torn down. This time there was no story in the Times, just an item in the Passaic Herald-News headlined “Radburn Footbridge Disappears; Few Even Notice Landmark’s Gone.’’
“The removal of the bridge has gone practically unnoticed by even old-time residents,’’ the paper reported.
The article noted that the span’s importance had been undercut by the opening of Milnes Elementary School, which southside Radburn children now attended and could reach on foot without crossing Fair Lawn Avenue.
Fair Lawn historian Jane Lyle Diepeveen, in her history of the borough, wrote that the footbridge was removed as part of the widening of Fair Lawn Avenue, probably in part to accommodate larger trucks.
The last pedestrian
Cathe McAuliffe, whose family moved to Randolph Terrace in 1948, probably was the last child to go to and from school over the bridge.
When classes began in 1951 she was ready to start kindergarten. Milnes Elementary was opening that fall, and for the first time children on Radburn’s south side would go there instead of Radburn School.
But Cathe’s parents already had contracted to buy a house on the north side of Fair Lawn Avenue (Beekman Place) and move around Thanksgiving. So she was granted permission to begin at Radburn School, even as her neighbors went to Milnes.
Each morning, as her mother watched, Cathe would cross what she recalls as a very rickety span — so rickety, in fact, that when her mother was not there to see her off, she’d just run across Fair Lawn Avenue. It felt safer.
Radburn to the rescue?
Radburn itself might have been able to step in to save the span. But the association, which originally was supposed to have included a population as high as 25,000, had been stunted financially by the Depression, which drove City Housing into bankruptcy. It probably would have been a financial stretch to rebuild or even maintain the bridge.
What happened to Stan Carlson, whose project initiated the bridge’s demise? By 1947 he had moved to Ridgewood. In the following year, in addition to the Fair Lawn Avenue complex, he developed a row of single-family houses on Hunter Place.
After City Housing filed for bankruptcy in 1934, much of its undeveloped land in Fair Lawn was sold. Carlson was among those who purchased it at cents on the dollar, or obtained it from those who had.
The Cape-style Hunter Place houses were the antithesis of what Radburn’s designers called “the Radburn Idea,” and the epitome of post-war American suburbia: They stood in a straight line, centered on their lots, facing the street, unconnected to any park, with no particular separation of pedestrians and vehicles.
Carlson had soured on the Radburn Idea. In 1951, at a panel discussion in New York City about Radburn, one participant asked why other developments hadn’t followed the Radburn pattern. Carlson (according to a summary of the session) said that, for one thing, the Radburn Association residential property assessment “is a cost factor that real estate promoters and builders do not believe their customers will pay for.’’
A successful career
Carlson did well for himself, though. In 1948 he became president of the Homebuilders Association of North Jersey. A subsequent newspaper article reported that he “has constructed thousands of homes in Long Island and Bergen County and is one of the state’s foremost builders.”
In 1954 he built more garden apartment units on Plaza Road between Howard and High Street. His local business partners included Maxwell Golburgh, a former City Housing salesman who for decades the principal realtor in Radburn. In 1957 Carlson built the Ramsey Shopping Center.
Carlson was known for his philanthropy. For example, he donated the extensive concrete piping for the new borough swimming pool in Memorial Park, and he was a patron of the Fair Lawn Boys Club. When he died in Palm Springs, California, in 1989 at age 90, he left the lion’s share of his $25 million estate to four Roman Catholic homes for the elderly in New Jersey.
But his role in the demise of the Fair Lawn Avenue footbridge is a stain on his record. Over the years the Radburn stretch of the avenue has seen numerous pedestrian accidents, including several fatalities -- a sad legacy for The Town for the Motor Age.
A version of this article first appeared in 2022.
Very enjoyable story. A wooden bridge, though pretty, would never have lasted. Only a low profile stone bridge could work for long enough to pay for itself. It would have required very long access ramps to handle the width of FL Ave.
Widening FL Ave was a mistake. Accommodating traffic is sleight of hand, convincing motorists that driving is more convenient. Traffic congestion forces people to walk or use public transportation instead of driving.
I love the photos you found for this story. But I don't think Carlson deserves a stain for undoing the bridge, it was a poor idea that had no chance of surviving. The stain belongs on not putting a red light at Fair Lawn Ave and Abbott Rd, for kids to cross there, and the elderly. At least they improved that intersection in recent years, but still a dangerous spot ever since Bergen Community opened and their traffic pours through that intersection every morning and afternoon.