15 replies to this topic

[lammius]

I recently moved to Montclair, and am enjoying the town.  I've brought my camera on a couple of my walks around and am eager to share this place with you guys.  

Montclair is a town of under 40,000 in north-central Essex County (5 miles NW of Newark, 12 mi W of Manhattan).  It's about 6 square miles (large by NJ standards) and has two major activity center nodes--Montclair Center (downtown), and Upper Montclair (business dist near Montclair State Univ).  In between there are lots of parks, ponds, and hills.  The largest, Eagle Rock, is over 600 feet high and offers views of Northern New Jersey and New York City.  

I plan to post pics of all of Montclair's sections, but first we'll begin with a walking tour of Montclair Center.  





Montclair Center



Bloomfield Ave



From the top of the hill, near the border of Verona Twp, you can see downtown Newark (and the Verrazano Bridge to the left but not shown).







It's only a short descent down into Montclair Center.  What's that on the left-hand side?  Is that Lower Manhattan?!







Street scenes...















Parisian-style cafe on Midland Ave











New condos on Park Street





Bank at the corner of Bloomfield and Glenridge Ave



















AWESOME rare book store on Glenridge Ave!















Who says a car dealership can't fit into the urban fabric?  It's not a beautiful building, but it's not a lot either.  











Church Street Promenade

















Church St & S Park St















I looked about as surprised and instantly interested in what was going on with this store as this woman appears to be...







Edgemont Park



Going North from Bloomfield Ave on Valley Rd, you soon encounter Edgemont Park, one of Montclair's many parks, but this monument makes it especially dramatic.  The monument sits on an island, which is connected to the mainland by a bridge, but the bridge is closed and locked off.  I guess someone once fell off it and sued.  









More to come, including.... Upper Montclair, Montclair parks, Montclair train stations, and whatever Montclair photo ops that may arise in the future.

[SouthJersey7]

Monclair looks fantastic! I like that Starbuck's/Whole Foods and as you mentioned, the car dealership. Both seem like not perfect but well-designed urban structures. But the downtown looks great. Lots of old, historic structures and little signs of decay. There seems to be many unique, interesting businesses which bodes well for any urban environment. Looking forward to the rest!  

[lammius]

SouthJersey7, on Sep 12 2006, 01:44 PM, said:

Monclair looks fantastic! I like that Starbuck's/Whole Foods and as you mentioned, the car dealership. Both seem like not perfect but well-designed urban structures. But the downtown looks great. Lots of old, historic structures and little signs of decay. There seems to be many unique, interesting businesses which bodes well for any urban environment. Looking forward to the rest!

Thanks, SJ7.  I took pics of this dealership once before, because my old town of Highland Park was trying to buy out a car dealership in its downtown because it didn't "fit in with the urban fabric."  To build a brand new showroom that meets the town's design criteria is expensive for a business owner to do, but this pic shows it can be done, and the Highland Park dealer should be given the option to bring his property into conformity with the zoning.  When talking with the dealer he was interested in the idea, depending of course on how much it would cost him.  The town planning board shrugged the idea off.  They already had an architect produce concept drawings for a new 3-story building with the obligatory corner "tower" displaying the obligatory Ye Olde Towne Clocke.  Anyway, I digress.

Montclair has been a pleasant place to live so far.  I'm just concerned about winter, because there are a lot of hills here, and being from VA I was never really trained in "how not to bash your car into a guardrail during a snowstorm 101."

[Recchia]

I love Montclair!  I love that car dealership, what a great example.  Northern Jersey is quite an interesting place.  It's got its dense urban municipalities (Newark, Elizabeth, the Oranges, Harrison, Hoboken, West NY, Paterson, etc.), dense town centers in between sprawl (South Orange, Montclair), and then of course classic sprawl like Ramsey, Livingston, etc.  Unfortunately a lot of people generalize it into 'ghettoes' and then rich suburbs, ignoring places like Montclair.  

Does Montclair have a NJTransit stop?

[lammius]

Recchia, on Sep 13 2006, 07:05 AM, said:

I love Montclair! I love that car dealership, what a great example. Northern Jersey is quite an interesting place. It's got its dense urban municipalities (Newark, Elizabeth, the Oranges, Harrison, Hoboken, West NY, Paterson, etc.), dense town centers in between sprawl (South Orange, Montclair), and then of course classic sprawl like Ramsey, Livingston, etc. Unfortunately a lot of people generalize it into 'ghettoes' and then rich suburbs, ignoring places like Montclair.

Does Montclair have a NJTransit stop?

Ugh I drive through Livingston everyday to get to work in Morristown.  East Hanover (just west on Route 10) is even worse with its mile-deep big-box retail centers on both sides of the highway!  

Montclair doesn't have just a NJTRANSIT stop, it has 5 train stations on the appropriately-named Montclair-Boonton Line!  The stops are ridiculously close together and I can only imagine how long the trip into Manhattan really is if it makes all of them.

[Jerseyman4]

Great pics! Ive never been to the actual town but been to Montclair State University several times. Betcha you like this town more than Highland Park  

Ive also been to nearby Livingston and Summit many times in their downtowns (Short Hills Mall too).

[ctman987]

Great pictures...downtown Montclair reminds me exactly of downtown Greenwich...a mixed use downtown that is walkable, and has an array of shops and restaurants. Is there a strong corporate presence in Montclair????....Places like this can really have a niche...I know greenwich now has one of the most competitive and expensive office markets

[Recchia]

Montclair is home to a lot of the outdoor filming sites in the Sopranos as well.  Me and my father did our own tour of Northeast Jersey a few years ago and found lots of the sites, including Satriale's (Kearney), Tony's mother's house in Verona, the actual Soprano house in North Caldwell, and where Tony got shot in season 1 in Montclair.  Verbum Dei high school is actually Harrison High School, and the Bada Bing is Satin Dolls in Lodi.  None of this is relevant, but oh well.

[lammius]

Jerseyman4, on Sep 13 2006, 11:36 AM, said:

Great pics! Ive never been to the actual town but been to Montclair State University several times. Betcha you like this town more than Highland Park

Montclair is worth checking out.  Short Hills is nice, and it's near Millburn which has a cool (though expensive) downtown area.  
There are things I like more about Montclair, and things I miss about Highland Park.  HP had my bank, grocery, liquor, pharmacy, bakery, cleaner, post office, bagel shop all on my block.  In Montclair it's a little more spread out.  Whereas HP had a downtown filled with services, Montclair's is mostly fine dining and specialty shops.  I also miss being on the Northeast Corridor.  The Montclair-Boonton Line by comparison blows goats!

Edited by lammius, 14 September 2006 - 12:06 PM.

[lammius]

ctman987, on Sep 13 2006, 03:13 PM, said:

Great pictures...downtown Montclair reminds me exactly of downtown Greenwich...a mixed use downtown that is walkable, and has an array of shops and restaurants. Is there a strong corporate presence in Montclair????....Places like this can really have a niche...I know greenwich now has one of the most competitive and expensive office markets

There really isn't a corporate presence in Montclair. It's really primarily a residential suburb. It has decent transit connections to New York City and Newark/Jersey City, so a lot of Montclair residents are commuters to those locations, although there are also a lot of cars joining me on my commute up I-280 west toward "farther out-urbia"

Edited by lammius, 14 September 2006 - 12:12 PM.

[lammius]

AMAZING PHOTO TAKEN AT EAGLE ROCK RESERVATION
  Taken by Janet James
  
  

[SouthJersey7]

Holy Crap!!! ^^^     you can see the whole world in that picture!  

[nynjdude]

I love Montclair.  I spend about as much time there as I do Morristown (locally known now as Hoboken-west).  I don't party or drink, I just love perusing city streets, parks, and having a sip of a local coffee.

[JerseyBoy]

Wonderful photos! I miss NJ a lot, wish I still lived up there!

[Lowerdeck]

Looks like a nice place.  I've only been to Montclair twice.  The first time it was down Bloomfield Ave at 11 at night, so that was kind of a wash.  The second was to Montclair State, so I missed much of the town.

[lammius]

nynjdude, on Jun 19 2007, 02:02 PM, said:

I love Montclair. I spend about as much time there as I do Morristown (locally known now as Hoboken-west). I don't party or drink, I just love perusing city streets, parks, and having a sip of a local coffee.

I used to work in Morristown.  I like the town green in the center of downtown.  It's a great spot to chow down on a quick take-out lunch and people-watch.  

The only place I've heard referred to as "Hoboken-west" is Jersey City Heights, which is the area of Jersey City atop the Palisade, west of Hoboken.  Most often I see that nomenclature on real estate ads that are trying to attract hipsters to venture out beyond the HOB's square mile of yuppiedom.  I prefer the term Faux-boken, though.

Edited by lammius, 17 July 2007 - 09:48 PM.