Today’s post is about an under-the-radar community called North Bergen, New Jersey. Why under the radar, you ask? The locals consider it well above any stinking radar. But to the rest of us yokels who live outside Hudson County, I don’t think this small city is particularly well known.
First of all, it’s got a weird gerrymandered shape. Look at the map. It stretches from the Hackensack River on the west to the Hudson River on the east in a panhandle. And from there, it narrows to a long, skinny spine running south along industrial Tonnelle Avenue (with West Side Avenue and JFK Boulevard flanking on the west and east, respectively) until it touches Jersey City.
The adjacent municipalities bordering the Hudson River of Weehawken, Union City, West New York, and Guttenberg (named for Johannes Gutenberg, the inventor of movable type) over time seceded from the original North Bergen Township, leaving no coherent downtown. Just a confusing urban sprawl without marked borders between all constituent parts. Taken together, North Bergen and the municipalities carved from it are home to more than 200,000 souls. The population density rivals New York City. In Guttenberg, for example, it reaches 58,000 per square mile (thanks largely to the Galaxy Towers).
So why all the hullabaloo?
I’ve recently noticed that, as Humphrey Bogart would say, of all the cities (and gin joints) in this world, the one community that sends more readers to my “establishment” than any other is, you guessed it, North Bergen.
Here’s a list of the top 10 cities where my readers live, who have come to this blog since it began in 2014. It’s not even close. More readers of The Bernard Olcott Story live in the city of North Bergen than any other! By far!
There are some very large cities on this list! Hello, my brah-la friends in Los Angeles!
Move aside, surfer bros. North Bergen reigns supreme!
As to my hometown of New York, it’s a mere 6th on the list; NB readers outnumber those from NY by roughly seven to one!
That second-place city “Ashburn” is somewhat of an oddity. This Ashburn is in northern Virginia, a suburb of Washington, DC. It’s known for being a major hub for internet traffic, so I imagine that’s why it’s on this list. I suppose robots come in second in terms of readership! Hey, remind me to leave silicon wafers outside my door every evening.
So why so many from North Bergen?
The explanation is surprisingly straightforward. Most of the former employees of Olcott International hailed from North Bergen. Back in 1982, as a new employee myself at Olcott International, if you had asked me to point to North Bergen on a map, I probably would have waved vaguely northward (North Bergen is somewhere north, right?) and hoped nobody noticed.
Over the years, many former employees have reached out to share news of themselves and their families. Those conversations have meant more to me than they probably realize. I’m also hearing from the sons and daughters of former employees who have discovered these stories for themselves.
Also in North Bergen, an ex-wife, or two. Veritable anchors of The Bernard Olcott Story.
This post is a call-out to you, your families, and the entire greater metropolis of North Bergen. I’m very grateful for your readership and support. Not all of these stories are happy ones. To those who got hurt, or whose souls got crushed, please know that I understand more than you may think. Hopefully, you can take some happy memories alongside the difficult ones. That’s part of what a cautionary tale is supposed to do.
There are still many stories I have never told. Some are simply too personal. Others remain unwritten out of respect for promises I made. And yes, the story still isn’t entirely over. More than nineteen years after my Father’s memorial service at the William J. Leber Funeral Home on JFK Boulevard, just across the street from southern North Bergen, one final procedural hearing concerning his estate is still scheduled for this summer.
I will be there. As I always have.
So thank you, North Bergen. Thank you for reading, for writing to me, for sharing your memories, and for sticking with this remarkable journey. You’ve made this little corner of the internet feel a little less lonely than I ever expected. I wish you and your families a wonderful summer.
I’ll never look at North Bergen again the same way.
“Thank you for your wine, [North Bergen]
Thank you for your sweet and bitter fruits…
Come on, come on down, you’ve got it in ya
Got to scrape that shit right off your shoes”
Sweet Virginia, Jagger/Richards
The Bernard Olcott Story 