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Paramus, New Jersey
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Paramus is a borough in Bergen County, New Jersey, United States. As of the United States 2000 Census, the borough population was 25,737. As of the Census Bureau's 2007 estimate, the population was 26,278. Paramus is one of the largest shopping meccas in the country, with over $5 billion in annual retail sales, more than any other ZIP Code in the United States. This is despite the fact that Paramus is noted for having some of the most restrictive blue laws in the United States (even stricter than those prevailing in the rest of Bergen County), banning nearly all retail and white-collar businesses from opening on Sundays.
Paramus was incorporated as a borough by an act of the New Jersey Legislature on March 2, 1922, based on the results of a referendum held on April 4, 1922 that passed by a vote of 238 for, 10 against.
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Encyclopedia
Paramus is a borough in Bergen County, New Jersey, United States. As of the United States 2000 Census, the borough population was 25,737. As of the Census Bureau's 2007 estimate, the population was 26,278. Paramus is one of the largest shopping meccas in the country, with over $5 billion in annual retail sales, more than any other ZIP Code in the United States. This is despite the fact that Paramus is noted for having some of the most restrictive blue laws in the United States (even stricter than those prevailing in the rest of Bergen County), banning nearly all retail and white-collar businesses from opening on Sundays.
Paramus was incorporated as a borough by an act of the New Jersey Legislature on March 2, 1922, based on the results of a referendum held on April 4, 1922 that passed by a vote of 238 for, 10 against. Paramus was created from portions of Midland Township, which now exists as Rochelle Park.
Geography
Paramus is located at (40.947107, -74.070471). According to the United States Census Bureau, the borough has a total area of 10.5 square miles (27.1 kmē), all of it land.
Demographics
As of the census of 2000, there were 25,737 people, 8,082 households, and 6,780 families residing in the borough. The population density was 2,457.7 people per square mile (949.1/kmē). There were 8,209 housing units at an average density of 783.9/sq mi (302.7/kmē). The racial makeup of the borough was 79.19% White, 1.13% African American, 0.05% Native American, 17.23% Asian, 0.01% Pacific Islander, 0.89% from other races, and 1.51% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 4.87% of the population.
There were 8,082 households out of which 37.0% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 73.3% were married couples living together, 8.0% had a female householder with no husband present, and 16.1% were non-families. 14.4% of all households were made up of individuals and 9.4% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 3.00 and the average family size was 3.32.
In the borough the population was spread out with 23.2% under the age of 18, 5.5% from 18 to 24, 24.7% from 25 to 44, 25.0% from 45 to 64, and 21.5% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 43 years. For every 100 females there were 94.4 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 90.4 males.
According to a 2007 estimate, the median income for a household in the borough was $97,209, and the median income for a family was $107,910. Males had a median income of $56,635 versus $37,450 for females. The per capita income for the borough was $29,295. About 1.4% of families and 3.3% of the population were below the poverty line, including 3.4% of those under age 18 and 5.0% of those age 65 or over.
Government
Local government
Paramus is governed under the Borough form of New Jersey municipal government. The government consists of a Mayor and a Borough Council comprising six council members, with all positions elected at large. A Mayor is elected directly by the voters to a four-year term of office and only votes to break a tie. The Borough Council consists of six members elected to serve three-year terms on a staggered basis, with two seats coming up for election each year.
The Mayor is (D, term ends December 31, 2010. Borough Council Members are Council President Frank A. Ciambrone (D, 2008), Richard Conte (D, 2010), Frederick Hayo (D, 2009), Denis Niland (D, 2009), Richard LaBarbiera (D, 2010) and Michael Blitzstein (D, 2008).
In elections held on November 6, 2007, voters turned out to fill two three-year seats on the Borough Council and answered two local ballot questions. Democratic incumbents Richard A. LaBarbiera (2,775 votes) and Richard J. Conte (2,748) were re-elected, edging Republican candidates Sam Casiello (2,552) and Michael Mariniello (2,534). Voters rejected both local ballot initiatives, turning down an Open Space Trust Fund that would collect one cent per $100 in assessed value by a 2,912-1,881 margin, and a $26.6 million library expansion by a vote of 3,125-1,759
On Election Day, November 7, 2006, voters chose a mayor and filled two seats on the borough council. The 2006 council was composed of five Democrats and a Republican, with one Democratic and one Republican seat up for reelection, in a community in which numbers of registered Republicans and Democrats are almost even. Democratic incumbent Mayor James J. Tedesco III (4,823 votes) was reelected, defeating Republican challenger Michael Mariniello Jr. (3,662). Democratic newcomers Denis Niland (4,853) and Frederick Hayo (4,319) were elected to the borough council, defeating Republicans Sam Casielo (3,850) and Patrick O'Brien (3,635). The 2007 council elected to office is composed entirely of Democrats.
Federal, state and county representation
Paramus is part of New Jersey's 38th Legislative District and is in the Fifth Congressional District.
Politics
As of April 1, 2006, out of a 2004 Census estimated population of 26,624 in Paramus, there were 16,636 registered voters (62.5% of the population, vs. 55.4% in all of Bergen County). Of registered voters, 3,144 (18.9% vs. 20.7% countywide) were registered as Democrats, 3,148 (18.9% vs. 19.2% countywide) were registered as Republicans and 10,342 (62.2% vs. 60.1% countywide) were registered as Undeclared. There were two voters registered to other parties.
On the national level, Paramus leans toward the Republican Party. In the 2008 presidential election, Republican John McCain received 51% of the vote here, defeating Democrat Barack Obama, who received around 47%.
Public Library
There are two public libraries in Paramus. There is the Main Library on Century Road. There is also the Charles E. Reid Branch library, which was originally a one-room schoolhouse built in 1876.
Education
The Paramus Public Schools serve students in Kindergarten through twelfth grade. Schools in the district (with 2005-06 enrollment data from the National Center for Education Statistics) are five K-4 schools (294 students),
(282),
(378), (373) and (246) both (637) and (699) for grades 5-8 and Paramus High School for grades 9-12 (1,680). Three of the district's schools have been formally designated as National Blue Ribbon Schools: Paramus High School, Parkway Elementary School and Ridge Ranch Elementary School.
Paramus is home to many private religious schools. Paramus Catholic High School is a co-educational Roman Catholic high school founded in 1965 and operated by the Archdiocese of Newark. It is the largest Roman Catholic high school in the state of New Jersey, enrolling approximately 1,500 students. It is also the location of , a K-8 Catholic school. Paramus is home to both the Yavneh Academy, a K-8 Jewish day school, and the Frisch School, a large Modern Orthodox Jewish yeshiva serving high-school age students in grades 9-12.
Bergen Community College, the county college of Bergen County, is based in Paramus, with other satellite centers located elsewhere around the county. The Bergen campus of Berkeley College is located in Paramus.
History
The term Paramus comes from the Lenape Native American word meaning "land of the wild turkey" or "place of fertile soil". That is why there is a giant metal statue of a turkey in the Paramus Park mall.
Paramus, and the neighboring communities of Ridgewood and Hackensack, was the scene of a great deal of activity during the American Revolutionary War.
A section of Paramus known as Dunkerhook (meaning dark corner in Dutch) was an African-American community dating back to the early 18th century. Although historical markers on the current site and local oral tradition maintain that this was a slave community, contemporary records document that this was actually a community of free blacks, not slaves.
During World War II, Farview Avenue was closed off by the United States Army, who positioned anti-aircraft artillery along the street to defend against air attack on New York City. Farview Avenue is located at the highest peak of Paramus and has a clear view of the New York City skyline.
Transportation
Public Transportation
New Jersey Transit bus routes 144, 145, 148, 155, 157, 162, 163, 164, 165, 168, 171, 175, 709, 722, 751, 752, 753, 755, 756, 758, 762 and 770 serve Paramus.
Road
Route 17, Route 4, and the Garden State Parkway pass through Paramus.
Commerce
Paramus is known for its multitude of stores and malls. It has five major indoor shopping centers, due to its easy access for residents in the areas of Bergen County and Passaic County in New Jersey and Rockland County in New York. New Jersey also does not levy a sales tax on clothes, which makes it an attractive shopping destination for people even further away in New York City.
On Route 4, are the Bergen Town Center (known as the Bergen Mall until 2006) and the Mall at IV. On Route 17, are Paramus Park and the Fashion Center. At the intersection of Routes 4 and 17 is Paramus's biggest and most famous mall, the Garden State Plaza. Across from the Garden State Plaza is the world's third-largest IKEA, one of three IKEAs in the New York City metro area. The Garden State Plaza is the largest mall in the Westfield Groups' global portfolio with a gross leasable area of 1,993,182sqf. Westfield Group is the largest retail property group globally.
Paramus, along with the rest of Bergen County, has strict blue laws preventing stores selling non-food items from opening on Sundays. Although it started as a religious observance, it is kept on the books due to a desire of the residents of Paramus to have one day a week when traffic is tolerable in the town. Furthermore, both Paramus and the surrounding county have significant Jewish and Muslim populations who do not observe their Sabbath on Sunday. This law was called into question most recently when a BJ's Wholesale Club opened at the 4/17 junction. BJ's was allowed to open on Sundays, but is only allowed to sell food and basic necessities. The store has been structured to deny access for shoppers to purchase items that cannot be purchased on Sunday. Paramus has its own blue laws that are significantly more restrictive than those in effect in other communities in Bergen County. It is one of the last places in the entire United States to have such an extensive blue law.
Local blue laws in Paramus were first proposed in 1957, while the Bergen Mall and Garden State Plaza were under construction. The legislation was motivated by fears that the two new malls would aggravate the already-severe highway congestion caused by local retail businesses along the borough's highways.
The Paramus Borough Code forbids the performance of any "worldly employment" on Sunday, with exceptions for charity, and the sale of newspapers, drugs, meals, prepared food and cigarettes, among a limited number of exceptions. Even work performed inside one's own home is prohibited, unless one can "prove to the satisfaction of the Judge that he uniformly keeps the seventh day of the week commonly known as the 'Sabbath'...".
In spite of its six-day shopping week, Paramus consistently has the most retail sales of any ZIP Code in the United States. Many national chain stores boast Paramus as their most prominent locations, including Nordstrom, in which the Paramus store is their best-performing chainwide. There are 25 retailers that occupy multiple stores in Paramus, including Macy's which had outlets in three malls for a short period of time. Some retail analysts view Paramus as being two markets, centered on the two major highways. Lord & Taylor has two locations in Paramus, giving Paramus the distinction of the only town with more than one Lord & Taylor location. Shoppers are often reluctant to switch from one highway to another, so having one outlet on each makes sense.
When Paramus residents go shopping on Sundays, they often visit Willowbrook Mall, a short distance down Interstate 80 in Wayne, New Jersey, or Palisades Center in West Nyack, New York.
Mall history
- 1957 - Westfield Garden State Plaza was built by Muscarelli Construction Company on at the intersection of Routes 4 and 17.
- 1957 - Bergen Town Center was built on on an area east of the Plaza on Route 4.
- 1968 - The Fashion Center was built on . The owners originally referred to its location as being in Ridgewood/Paramus to appeal to the Ridgewood population. Over the years, the references to Ridgewood became somewhat lost.
- 1974 - Paramus Park was built by the Rouse Company. The last of the large centers was built on in the middle of an area where the old farms were located.
- 2003 - IKEA opens its third-largest store at the intersection of Routes 4 and 17, on the site of the old Alexander's department store. It was joined the next year by three other retailers.
Entertainment
In 1931, one of the earliest drive-in theaters opened in Paramus, and boasted the world's largest and brightest screen, located behind what is now Westfield Garden State Plaza. The Paramus Drive-In closed sometime around 1983.
Paramus' lone movie theater complex is a 16-screen AMC Theatres located in an area of new construction at Westfield Garden State Plaza. Two theatres which have been closed within the last five years include the Route 4 Tenplex and the Cineplex Odeon Route 17 Triplex, once located next to the Westfield Garden State Plaza on Route 17. The Triplex theatre was opened in 1965 by Century Theatres and was closed on January 19, 2006 by Loews Cineplex Entertainment. The Tenplex on Route 4 was closed on May 24, 2007, the day before the new AMC Theatres opened at Westfield Garden State Plaza. The Cinema 35 was also closed when the Plaza 35 Shopping Center was renovated in 2005.
Van Saun County Park is located in Paramus and the adjoining borough of River Edge. It has Bergen County's only zoo, home to a wide variety of wild and domestic animals living in recreated habitats natural to each species.
In 2008, the Paramus Country Club opened up a miniature golf course that is themed after the town of Paramus as well as the state of New Jersey. They decided to conveniently place turkey statues around the course to celebrate Paramus as the "land of wild turkeys."
Popular culture
- The 1993 Saturday Night Live spin-off movie Coneheads is set in Paramus. Dan Aykroyd and Jane Curtin's characters decide to move to and permanently reside in the town so daughter Michelle Burke can attend Paramus High School. Aykroyd's character "Beldar Conehead" spends his days in Paramus teaching driving lessons and playing golf.
- Vinnie Fiorello from the popular band Less Than Jake, the band has a few songs dedicated to Paramus.
- In the movie Ransom, Mel Gibson and Gary Sinise drive right past the now-defunct tenplex movie theater located on Route 4.
- Several episodes of The Sopranos, the HBO mob drama, have used Paramus locations. The Garden State Plaza was used as the "Paramus Mall," and the Ramsey Outdoor Store on Route 17 became the "Ramsey Outdoor," and a character is "whacked" at the remnants of the Old Mill Bathing Beach on Paramus Road. In the final episode of the series, a scene with Paulie Walnuts is shot in Paramus, where he was in a car, driving past a gas station.
- Arcola Amusement Park (Arcola section Rochelle Park/Paramus) was built in 1926 which covered about . A fire destroyed it in 1929.
- Burn After Reading a 2008 film by the Coen Brothers was partly filmed in Paramus.
- The Colbert Report, during its Threat Down segment on April 24, 2008, listed the bear sightings in Paramus as the Number 1 threat to our country. The Paramus Park mall was also shown in the segment.
- The 1979 movie The In-Laws mentions the Paramus Philharmonic as the wedding band.
- An episode of Boy Meets World mentions Cory and Shawn eating cake at the "Paramus Mall"
Notable residents
Notable current and former residents of Paramus include:
- David Brock (born 1962), prominent neoconservative turned liberal.
- Jay "Jersey" Erlich (born 1985) Finalist on MTV's hit show, "A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila II". He attended Paramus High School, and still resides in Paramus.
- Dean Friedman (born 1955), one-hit wonder with the top tune "Ariel" in 1977, which to date is the only Top 40 song to ever include the word "Paramus" in the lyrics.
- Peter Gennaro (1919-2000), Tony Award-winning dancer and choreographer.
- Matt Ghaffari, Olympic wrestler.
- Jamie Gold (born 1969), winner of the 2006 World Series of Poker. His father was a Dentist located on Ridgewood Avenue in Paramus.
- Tony Lip, actor who appeared on The Sopranos, playing the role of Carmine Lupertazzi.
- William Marchant (born 1923), playwright and screenwriter, author of Desk Set, died in Paramus on November 5, 1995.
- Dean Obeidallah, Arab/Italian-American comedian.
- Kazbek Tambi (born 1961), former professional soccer player.
- Trixter, a glam metal band, formed in Paramus.
- Elaine Zayak (born 1965), one of the worlds top figure skaters in the early 1980s, attended Paramus High School.
Sources
- Paramus - the Way We Were 1922-1960 by Fritz Behnke
External links
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