Birds Eye View
This is 31 Glenwood Ave as it appeared in 2007. Notice Dad's garage is gone. The house directly North was built by Ger and Ernie on an adjacent lot. This lot was where I had my "victory garden" during the war years. The house directly North of Ger and Ernie's was built by the Hendrickson's daughter and her husband. I don't remember her marriage name right now, but I will come back and fill it in when I think of it. The senior Hendricksons lived directly to the North. The daughter's house was built on an adjacent lot and was built many years ago while I still lived at 31 Glenwood. The house was there when I had my "victory garden".
This shot is 31 Glenwood from the rear. I can see changes that have been made since Dad owned it. It looks like they removed the porch we had and added a family room. I think I see a large chimney that would indicate a family room. Since the house was built on a hill, one could walk into the cellar at ground level. You can see the cellar door. This door would have been under the porch we had and would not be seen. We had outside stairs going up to our porch that just cleared the cellar window seen here. I don't understand the dark area which appears to be an open porch. Oh yes I do, it's just a shadow. Look at some of the other houses that have overhangs.
The lone black car seen in the street is in front of what use to be Dilger's grocery store. This store was run by Dan and Mary Dilger, who were married, and a brother Charlie Dilger. Dan was the butcher, Mary handled the money, Charlie drove a small truck making deliveries and to bring fresh produce back from the markets in New York City.
Before Mary placed purchased items in a paper bag, she would list all the prices from memory on the outside of the bag. She would then add up the figures faster than it could be done on an adding machine while at the same time continue the latest gossip conversation. This feat still amazes me to this day, I guess mostly because of the speed in which it was done. Who needs the expensive scanners and etc. of today? It was real convenient having this store directly across the street. When we realized we were short something, we would just run across the street and get it, even if it happened during the course of a meal. We also had a milkman, a bread man and an egg man. Who needs the supermarkets of today? The milkman had a horse and wagon and the horse would follow him up the street as he made the deliveries.
Here's the hairpin turn that was seen in some of the early pictures of 31 Glenwood Ave. That's River Road you see at the bottom right. This is why we couldn't sliegh ride down all of Glenwood Ave., you would wind up on River Road. The lot where the hand is was empty and this is where we terminated our slide. It was the point of no return, you would be going too fast to stop after this.
This is viewing the hairpin turn from the East. The early pictures of 31 Glenwood Ave were taken from top of the cliff seen here at the upper left. There use to be a nice park in the center of the hairpin turn with flag pole, benches and flowers. There was also a nice park to the left of the house seen here that went up to the hairpin turn. I was able to climb to the top of the cliff through this park. These parks were constructed by the WPA.
This is top of the cliff. What do you think these homes are worth? None of these homes were here when I was a kid. It was all woods and a great place to play.
Another view of on top of the cliff. When I was a kid it was all woods up to Palisade Ave. I could walk through the woods to the back of the hot dog stands along Palisade Ave. Palisade Ave was the main road from the George Washington Bridge to Palisade Amusement Park. They sold one foot long greasy hot dogs fried in grease that were out of this world.
Let's take a walk up Undercliff Ave. to the George Washington School, my grama school. Notice where Palisade Ave. is at the upper lelt. Everything this side of Palisade Ave. was mostly woods. Like I said before, a great place to play. There was even a small cave in the cliff that I could go in. There were two ponds in the woods where I could go ice skating, Watkins and Piggy. I never did any ice skating in the Hudson River, it was too dangerous. First you needed some real cold weather for the salt water to freeze, and second the raising and lowering of the tide, that brought in the salt water, would break up the ice. You could find yourself floating out into the river on a broken off big piece of ice.
George Washington School is on the North side of Orchard St. Here again, notice where Palisade Ave. is. One place for getting up into the woods was at the head of Orchard St.
Front view of George Washington School. Notice the steps on the left. Most everything in Edgewater is built on a hill. The wall, street and fence behind the school was built by the WPA while I was attending the school.
Rear view of George Washington School. Notice the stairs on the left going down into the ground. These are going down to the gymnasium. The gymnasium is on the ground floor, but because the school is built on a hill, the stairs were needed for emergency exits. We had a lot of fun putting each other down in the dungeon as we called it..
Notice the fire escape. This went up to the 4th and 6th grades. We would use the fire escape in the morning and at the end of the school day to go in and out of the classroom, and of course for fire drills.
My teacher names were:
While we are here, let's continue up River Road to the George Washington Bridge.
At the lower right is one the three fire houses I worked at as a fireman. Notice George Washington School on the left.
While we are here, let's take a walk up to the George Washington Bridge.
That's the George Washington School in the lower left and we are on the way to the bridge.
When I lived here it was all woods between the streets coming off of River Road and Palisade Ave.in Fort Lee. Henry Hudson Drive was a nice senic drive. It went under the George Washington Bridge. It was built by the WPA. I guess today we would call it "a road to nowhere". At the entrance to Henry Hudson Drive, across River Road high up on a hill, was a big old castle. You could not get to it from River Road. The story had it
Web page created by George Russell Benedict
