PASCACK VALLEY—“STRANGE THINGS HAPPEN in the Pascack Valley,” began the Westwood Chronicle in 1936. “When a newspaperman finds himself in a tight spot and wonders what he’s going to use to fill up a lot of white space, he looks in the direction of Washington Township. It rarely disappoints.”
This week we go back 90 years, spring, 1936. Our setting is Bergen Avenue in the Township of Washington, four, Wal- nut, Hickory and Calvin streets, south of Ridgewood Road, and all at Bergen Avenue, which runs along the Musquapsink Brook.
Today the neighborhood is full of houses, many of them built during the mid-century building boom. In 1936, it looked altogether different. Instead of a population of more than 9,000, about 450 people lived in the township. There were roughly 100 households, many roads were still unpaved, and most of the land was forest and swamp.
Because the railroad never came through Washington Township, development lagged behind neighboring towns with train stops. In other words, the township was still “the sticks,” which helps explain how the following episode could unfold.
In 1933, a large tent went up on Bergen Avenue. There was nothing in the township’s budding code to prohibit it, so it stayed that way for the next three years.
Then, in the spring of 1936, the tent disappeared. In its place stood a small wooden house, about 20 by 20 feet in size. The good people of the township could scarcely believe what they were seeing.
“A man raised a tent,” wrote the Chronicle. “No one thought much about it. Strange things than that happen in Washington Township every day.”
The paper went on: “Time went on. Came a day when the natives of ‘Front Door to Westwood’ woke up and looked in the direction of the tent. They blinked, rubbed their eyes, and blinked some more. The tent was gone. In its place stood a shack. Presto-change-o! Just like that. Pulling a rabbit out of a hat, as it were.”
Perhaps the builder thought that if the structure were already standing, he could finesse the small matter of obtaining a building permit. Perhaps he did not realize one was required. Either way, township officials were having none of it. They hauled him in.