WESTWOOD—On Sept. 21. 1935, the citizens of Westwood, with county, state, and national officials, marched through local streets bedecked with flags and bunting. The band played patriotic odes to America as the procession wended its way to its downtown destination at the corner of Westwood and Fairview avenues.
All the excitement was over a new building that had lately risen on the streetscape, one still easily recognizable 90 years later.
Work on Westwood’s new post office had begun that spring. This one-story brick building replaced one of the landmarks of old Westwood, the former home of Mayor Thomas E. Brickell. Dismantling the Victorian estate had provided temporary work to local men left unemployed by the Great Depression.
The post office cost $40,000 to build—equivalent to nearly $1 million in today’s money. The people of Westwood had followed along as construction advanced all summer, and the dedication of the building brought out a huge crowd. The theme of the day was progress, but there were also nods to the past. Postmaster Timothy J. Lyons spoke on the history of the local post office, which began in 1862 when Westwood was still called Pleasantville.
Former postman Charles Perry was in attendance. Several decades earlier, he was Westwood’s first delivery driver when R.F.D. Route 1 opened in 1901. He delivered mail across Westwood’s dirt roads in those days by horse-drawn wagon, or a sleigh in the winter. Flags displayed on his wagon would tell people the day’s weather forecast. The borough had 120 mailboxes when Perry started his route. He delivered about 70 pieces of mail per day.
The late 1920s and early 1930s were a time of rapid change in Westwood, and the replacement of the Brickell home by the new post office was just the latest.
Westwood had gained a modern municipal building on Center Avenue in October 1929, followed one month later by the borough’s “first skyscraper,” as it was described then, in the form of the Westwood Trust Company bank building. The bank’s predecessor at Broadway and Westwood Avenue was an old general store building constructed in 1869.
Westwood’s new train station came in 1932, replacing the original wooden station that existed nearly from the Pascack Valley Line’s inception in 1870.
In the summer of 1935, while the new post office was under construction, Westwood welcomed its first ambulance. The service was through the fire department back then. A huge crowd came to see the vehicle at a dedication event in Veterans Park.
“The post office building is another milestone in the history of Westwood. It is something we have sought for years, another goal attained. It ranks with such community improvements as the acquisition of the municipal park, the building of the railroad station, the opening of the municipal building, the coming of the local theaters, the erection of the Westwood Trust Building, and the dedication of the ambulance,” said Mayor Lucien O. Hooper.
“Let us again show the people of the surrounding communities that Westwood is an up-and-coming town,” he added. “The whole metropolitan area is on the verge of a building boom and Westwood is just the type of community thousands of highly desirable families are looking for.”