Who can remember back when there was a Valley Fair in Cresskill? Once located at the present-day site of Kings on Union Avenue, Valley Fair opened this week back in 1956, bringing the borough its first supermarket.
Opened the morning of Thursday, Dec. 13, 1956, the new shopping center featured Valley Fair, a liquor store, barber shop, Chez Bizarre beauty salon, a luncheonette, Cress Cleaners (a dry cleaner), and the Cresskill Bake Shop.
“Once again leading the way to new heights in food merchandising,” Valley Fair’s advertisements said. “A fantasy foodland to serve every need in an atmosphere heretofore unattained.”
Opening specials included 5-pound bags of sugar at 39 cents each, Maxwell House coffee at 89 cents per pound, and boxes of Rinso laundry detergent at two for 49 cents.
On Saturday, Dec. 22, Santa Claus arrived at Valley Fair by helicopter and gave out gifts. The helicopter also dropped 5,000 gift certificates over Cresskill and the surrounding area.
Valley Fair was founded by the Ganguzza family, whose first location opened in the 1940s on Clifton’s Valley Road—the inspiration for the store’s name. Cresskill’s Valley Fair was the family’s sixth location.
Kings would later replace Valley Fair in 1965. A massive fire tore through the building on Christmas Eve morning of 1975, having started at an old incinerator in the rear of the building. The store was open at the time, but all the customers and employees were evacuated safely and a real tragedy was averted. The store was rebuilt and decades later Kings is still present on Union Avenue.
—Kristin Beuscher
