HILLSDALE—A scene captured in Hillsdale around 1908 shows the venerable Riley Building, at the corner of Broadway and Hillsdale Avenue, back when it was just a couple of years old.
At the time this main thoroughfare was not Broadway but rather Railroad Avenue, in the direction of Westwood and Summit Avenue in the direction of Woodcliff Lake, with downtown Hillsdale the dividing point between the two. Broadway came in 1923.
John H. Riley, a former freeholder and prominent Hillsdale citizen, had his namesake building constructed in 1906. A hotel and saloon, it was optimally positioned to receive travelers arriving at the railroad station across the street. The Riley Building also contained storefronts rented out for retail.
In July 1906 a terrible thunderstorm caused damage all over Bergen County, including in Hillsdale, where Riley’s building, then under construction, was struck by lightning. The resulting fire was a major setback, but construction proceeded during August and the building was finished at the end of the summer.
Riley began advertising for tenants in the classifieds in August 1906: “TO LET—Two new stores at Hillsdale, opposite station: 26 feet front by 45 feet deep. Plate glass front. Five rooms upstairs.”
In March 1907 it seems there were still openings, with Riley advertising “FOR RENT—Gentlemen’s furnishings store, drug store, barber shop and store for hardware business. Six-room apartments above. J.H. Riley, Hillsdale.”
There was another fire at the Riley Building in August 1910, with the cause unknown. The fire did about $5,000 worth of damage—equivalent to $160,000 today—and gutted the second floor of the hotel as well as two of the stores.
Salvatore Marsala purchased the building and ran the saloon for some time before turning to the hardware business in 1929. Marsala Hardware operates in the Riley Building to this day.
— Kristen Beuscher is president of the Pascack Historical Society.