Shopping
From rural farmland to shopping mecca, here’s a look at the history of Paramus
2-minute read
Stew Leonard’s in Paramus Park Mall
An inside look of Stew Leonard’s in Paramus.
Madeline Ference, NorthJersey
At the Paramus Park shopping center, a clay-colored landmark stands apart from the usual array of department stores and vendor stalls.
Far from being a typical mall feature, the towering steel statue depicts a crested rider atop an unusual and far more heavily feathered steed. Titled “The Wild Turkey,” it stands as a tribute to the history of Paramus, a modern commercial hub with a name that honors its indigenous roots and early European settlers.
Before it became a major suburban retail center, Paramus was occupied for thousands of years by the Lenni Lenape Native Americans. The name of the town, spelled by early European settlers as “Parames,” supposedly comes from “Parampseapus” or “Peremessing,” thought to be Lenape words for “where there is worthwhile (or fertile) land” or “place of wild turkeys.” The name Paramus may also derive from the Lenape word(s) for “turkey river,” according to Patricia A. Wardell’s compilation “A Dictionary of Place Names in Bergen County, New Jersey and Vicinity.”
Either way, local lore claims the fertile ground in Paramus was ideal for growing maize, and, therefore, attracting wild turkeys. Despite the readily available food provided by Lenape farmers, there are sadly no tales of birds big enough to ride.
Today, Paramus is the “Crossroads of Bergen County,” defined by the intersections of major highways — Route 4, Route 17, and the Garden State Parkway — that have played a significant role in its transformation from rural farmland to suburban Black Friday destination.
Paramus Park was built on 64 acres of farmland east of Route 17 and west of the GSP. Despite the interior of the mall being packed with ficus trees, its construction made the exterior landscape decidedly less green than it was when it harbored hunting grounds for residents who spoke Munsee and built large, multi-family wooden dwellings along the local rivers and creeks.
When Paramus Park opened on March 14, 1974, adjacent to a 4,000-car parking lot, the 300-pound, burnt orange bird and its young rider were there to greet shoppers at the mall’s north end.
Created by Christopher Parks, a 24-year-old artist from Delaware, and presented by the Rouse Company, one of the mall’s co-developers, the 20-foot-high steel sculpture serves not only as a visual focal point but also as a symbol of the region’s rich natural heritage and its Lenape people. Both have become hard to find.
The evolution of Paramus took a significant turn toward what it is today in the mid-20th century. Kicked off by the opening of the George Washington Bridge in 1931 and fueled by the expansion of Route 17 and Route 4, the town was left almost unrecognizable by the rapid development of the 1950s and 1960s.
The flat, accessible land made Paramus an ideal location for developers. Soon, major malls including Bergen Mall and Garden State Plaza were established. This development transformed the town from a quiet farming community into a thriving commercial hub. In just one decade, from 1948 to 1958, Paramus’ population quadrupled, while retail sales skyrocketed, reshaping the town’s economic landscape.
Just 50 years before, Paramus was still a rural area, largely untouched by the rapid suburbanization seen elsewhere in Bergen County.
In the early 20th century, the area was part of Midland Township. Established in 1871, Midland had less than 2,500 residents when Paramus broke away in 1922. Disputes over taxation for streetlights and a desire for home rule of public schools led to the eventual separation of Paramus from the rest of Midland, modern-day Rochelle Park.
Paramus’ modern foundation nonetheless stretches back even further. The Paramus patent granted to Albert Saboroweski, a Polish immigrant whose descendants became the Zabriskie family, marked a critical milestone.
According to local histories, Saboroweski gained the patent holding 1,977 acres of land from a group of Lenape as a show of contrition and goodwill. As the story goes, the Lenape had taken Saboroweski’s son, Jacob, without explanation, in order to teach him their language and make him a much-needed translator before eventually returning him home.
Would he recognize his home today?
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