Paramus ( Waggoner, Walter H. "Paramus Is Honored in Clean-Up Contest; Bergen Town Happy but Not Surprised by National Award" , The New York Times, February 16, 1966. Accessed October 16, 2018. "Paramus – pronounced puh-RAHM-us, with the accent on the second syllable – may have taken its name from 'perremus' or 'perymus,' Indian for 'land of the turkey'.") is a borough in the central portion of Bergen County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. A suburban bedroom community of New York City, Paramus is located northwest of Midtown Manhattan and approximately west of Upper Manhattan. The Wall Street Journal characterized Paramus as "quintessentially suburban".Minaya, Ezequiel. "Paramus, the Quintessential Suburb; Residents say the Bergen County borough has a small-town feel" , The Wall Street Journal, April 29, 2016. Accessed May 30, 2018. "Paramus, in New Jersey’s Bergen County, is quintessentially suburban but without a main street downtown lined with stores and restaurants and maybe a theater." The borough is also a major commercial hub for North Jersey (home to Garden State Plaza and various corporate headquarters).Lynn, Kathleen."Paramus, N.J.: Low Taxes and Lots of Shopping" , The New York Times, April 7, 2021. Accessed May 3, 2022.
As of the 2020 United States census, the borough's population was 26,698, an increase of 356 (+1.4%) from the 2010 census count of 26,342, which in turn reflected an increase of 605 (+2.4%) from the 25,737 counted in the 2000 census.Table 7. Population for the Counties and Municipalities in New Jersey: 1990, 2000 and 2010 , New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development, February 2011. Accessed May 1, 2023.
Paramus was incorporated as a borough by an act of the New Jersey Legislature on March 2, 1922, and ratified by a referendum held on April 4, 1922, that passed by a vote of 238 to 10.Paramus History, Borough of Paramus. Accessed June 1, 2015. Paramus was created from portions of Midland Township, which now exists as Rochelle Park.Snyder, John P. The Story of New Jersey's Civil Boundaries: 1606–1968, Bureau of Geology and Topography; Trenton, New Jersey; 1969. p. 84. Accessed May 30, 2024.Staff. Acts of the One Hundred and Forty-Sixth Legislature of the State of New Jersey, pp. 81-83. New Jersey Secretary of State, 1922. Accessed October 17, 2015. "An Act to incorporate the borough of Paramus, in the county of Bergen" The borough's name is thought to have originated from the Unami language spoken by the Lenape Native Americans, derived from words meaning "land of the turkeys" or "pleasant stream".Hutchinson, Viola L. The Origin of New Jersey Place Names , New Jersey Public Library Commission, May 1945. Accessed September 8, 2015.
Paramus has some of the most restrictive blue laws in the United States, dating back to the 17th century, banning nearly all white-collar and retail businesses from opening on Sundays except for gas stations, restaurants and grocery stores, and a limited number of other businesses.Tompkins, John. "Sunday Selling Plaguing New Jersey" , The New York Times, June 2, 1957. Accessed December 18, 2017. "The battle over whether retailers should be allowed to sell on Sunday is becoming more intense in New Jersey as lobbyists on both sides increase their efforts." Despite this, the borough is one of the largest shopping destinations in the country, generating over $6 billion in annual retail sales, more than any other ZIP Code in the United States.Pries, Allison. "Inside the N.J. town where retail spending beats Hollywood and tourism rivals Disney" , NJ Advance Media for NJ.com, March 10, 2019, updated June 19, 2019. Accessed October 6, 2019. "The former farming community already sees more retail sales than any other ZIP Code in the country.... More than $6 billion in retail sales happen in Paramus each year."
History Pre-settlement The area that ultimately became the present-day North Jersey had been occupied for thousands of years by prehistoric indigenous peoples. At the time of European encounter, it was settled by the Lenape Native Americans. The Lenape language word for the area, Peremessing, which meant that it had an abundant population of wild turkey, was anglicized to become the word "Paramus".Citizens Semi-Centennial Assoc., 1919, Ridgewood, Bergen County, New Jersey, Past and Present , p. 3. Accessed October 6, 2019. "The name 'Paramus' is said to be derived from the Indian 'Peremessing', descriptive of the fact that the country abounded in wild turkey. The first white settlers called it 'Peremesse' from which the transition was gradually made to the present form, Paramus."Cheslow, Jerry. "If You're Thinking of Living In/Paramus; In Shopping Mecca, Houses Sell Well Too" , The New York Times, April 15, 2001. Accessed May 23, 2012. A large metal statue of a wild turkey in the Paramus Park mall commemorates this history. Another alternative derivation is that the word means "pleasant stream".Hutchinson, Viola L. The Origin of New Jersey Place Names , New Jersey Public Library Commission, May 1945. Accessed November 13, 2015.
18th century Albrycht Zaborowski, whose descendants became known by the family name "Zabriskie",The Zabriskie House, built in 1796 in nearby Ho-Ho-Kus, New Jersey, is an area landmark. immigrated from Poland via the Dutch ship Deb Ves in 1662. He settled in the Dutch West Indies Company town of Ackensack, site of the present-day Hackensack. A son, Jacob, was captured by the Lenape and held for 15 years. When he was returned to his family, the Lenape explained to Saboroweski that they had taken the child in order to teach him their language so that he could serve as a translator. They granted Saboroweski approximately of land which became known as the "Paramus Patent".History of Bergen and Passaic Counties, New Jersey , pp. 321–322. Accessed October 6, 2019.
During the American Revolutionary War, the county included both Loyalists and Patriots, with Patriots "greatly outnumbering" Tories.Ridgewood Past and Present, p. 4 Although no major battles were fought in Bergen County, Paramus was part of the military activity, as colonial troops were stationed in Ramapo under the command of Aaron Burr.Hamilton, Alexander. The Papers of Alexander Hamilton, Columbia University Press, 1977, p. 296. While stationed in Ramapo, Burr met the woman he later married. The 1782 ceremony was held in Paramus. In 1777, the British raided the Hackensack area and Burr marched troops to Paramus, where he attacked the British, forcing them to withdraw.Ridgewood Past and Present, p. 7. General George Washington was in Paramus several times during the War: December 1778; July 1780; and, December 1780.Ridgewood Past and Present, p. 6 Following the Battle of Monmouth, Washington established his headquarters in Paramus in July 1778.Bake, William Spohn. Itinerary of General Washington from June 15, 1775, to December 23, 1783, J. B. Lippincott Company, 1892, p. 137 Over the advice of his staff, Washington moved his headquarters to Westchester County, New York.Leiby, Adrian Coulter. The Revolutionary War in the Hackensack Valley , p. 158. Rutgers University Press, 1980. . Accessed October 6, 2019.
A section of Paramus known as Dunkerhook, meaning dark corner in Dutch, was a free African-American community dating to the early 18th century. Although historical markers on the current site and local oral tradition maintain that this was a slave community, contemporary records document that it was a community of free blacks, not slaves.Dunkerhook: Slave Community? , accessed November 11, 2006. A group of houses built on Dunkerhook Road by the Zabriskies in the late 18th to early 19th centuries was the center of a community of black farmers, who had been slaves held by the Zabriskie family.Cardwell, Diane. "For House Telling Paramus's History, End May Be Near" , The New York Times, June 27, 2011. Accessed December 25, 2011. "The two houses, at 273 and 263 Dunkerhook, and a third one down the road and just over the line in Fair Lawn, were originally built, historians say, by one of the founding families of Bergen County, the Zabriskies. The house at 273 Dunkerhook dates to around 1790; the one at 263 Dunkerhook dates to 1803. As the Paramus houses passed from the Zabriskies to black farmers believed to be former Zabriskie slaves, they helped seed a thriving black settlement of several houses and a church that lasted into the 1930s."
20th century In 1909, the Arcola Country Club and golf course was created in 1909 and the neighborhood by that name grew around it.Craffey, Jim. How Arcola Came To Be - An Abridged History , Arcola Country Club. Accessed March 18, 2022. Farview Avenue, located at the highest elevation in Paramus, has a clear view of the Manhattan skyline.Staff. "Flat In Jersey City Resold To Investor; Patrick J. Kennedy Acquires the Comfort Apartment on Bergen Avenue. Acreage Deal At Paramus Two Yonkers Plots Are Included in Westchester Transfers—Building Projects." , The New York Times, March 28, 1928. Accessed December 25, 2011. "Conrad Roes bought fourteen acres on the west side of Farview Avenue, Paramus, in Bergen County. The property is said to have the second highest elevation in the county and overlooks the Manhattan skyline."
Paramus became one of the truck farming areas that helped New Jersey earn its nickname as the "Garden State".Satterthwaite, Ann. Going Shopping: Consumer Choices and Community Consequence, Yale University Press, 2001, p. 256 By 1940, Paramus' population was just 4,000, with no town center and 94 retail establishments.Going Shopping, p. 256. Although the opening of the George Washington Bridge in 1931 and the widening of Route 17 and Route 4, which intersect in southern Paramus, made the area accessible to millions, "it was not until the 1950s that massive development hit this section of northern New Jersey".
During the 1950s and 1960s, Paramus, lacking any master plan until 1969, was redeveloped into two shopping corridors when its farmers and outside developers saw that shopping malls were more lucrative than produce farming. "It was a developer's dream: flat cleared land adjacent to major arterials and accessible to a growing suburban population and the country's largest city – with no planning restrictions". New York had a state sales tax, but New Jersey had no sales tax on clothing and food, so with the opening of Manhattan department stores in the Bergen Mall (1957), the Garden State Plaza (1957) and Alexander's (1961), Paramus became the "first stop outside New York City for shopping".Going Shopping, p. 257
From 1948 to 1958, the population of Paramus nearly quadrupled, from 6,000 to 23,000, while the number of retail establishments tripled from 111 to 319, and annual retail sales increased twenty-fold in nominal dollars, from $5.5 million (equivalent to $ million in ) to $112 million (equal to $ billion in ). By the 1980s, when the population had increased slightly over 1960s levels, retail sales had climbed to $1 billion.
21st century Paramus was the scene of one of the worst COVID-19 outbreaks in the U.S. when an outbreak at the New Jersey Veterans Home resulted in 74 deaths, all former soldiers through May 2020, with some 60% of the home's 314 residents being infected.Tully, Tracey. "‘The Whole Place Is Sick Now’: 74 Deaths at a Home for U.S. Veterans" , The New York Times, May 10, 2020, updated September 25, 2020. Accessed May 25, 2022. "But nowhere has the devastation been starker than at the New Jersey Veterans Home at Paramus, a state-run home for former members of the U.S. military, where on Tuesday 74 deaths had been linked to virus.... The virus has swept through the facility, which in late March had 314 residents, infecting 60 percent of its patients."
Geography