"Last Sunday afternoon
I took a trip to Hackensack,
But after I gave Hackensack the once-over,
I took the next train back."
-Cole Porter
Hackensack won’t win any beauty contests, as smartass Mr. Porter can attest, but it’s a pretty energetic little city with a bustling, perhaps sleazy, downtown.
Hackensack, pop. 43,000, is the seat of Bergen County, New Jersey’s most populous at just under 900,000. The county is a prime example of NJ’s boroughitis, packing 70 municipalities into 237 square miles. Hackensack is about 10 miles from Manhattan and is a thoroughly diverse town.
Ex-Ithican did a great tour of Hackensack a few months ago, but I had to do my own tour while home for the holidays.
Main Street. Go Devils.
Johnson Library
Looking south on Main
Hackensack is fairly unique among New Jersey cities in that it has very little industry (not many office buildings either). It is mostly a commuter town, with the county government and Hackensack Medical Center being the biggest employers in the city. There are two old midrise banks on Main Street, and a much larger skyline of residential towers up the hill west of downtown.
Prospect Ave towers in the distance
There are a bunch of neat old apartment buildings near downtown, but they don’t really form a cohesive urban district.
Fans of 1960’s jazz will know Hackensack as the place where Rudy Van Gelder started recording artists including Sonny Rollins for Blue Note Records, before moving the studio to nearby Englewood Cliffs, NJ.
In my opinion, the jazz recorded in Bergen County (the bulk of 60's output form Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Joe Henderson, Bobby Hutcherson, Freddie Hubbard, Donald Byrd, Dexter Gordon, Art Blakey, Jackie McLean, Andrew Hill) holds up to anything recorded in New York at Columbia or Atlantic.
Tudor is a very popular style in Bergen County, as well as the rest of North Jersey and parts of central Queens. More than any other style it reminds me of home. You don’t see much in the Midwest or New England.
Awesome urban Sears on upper Main
There is a matching row of these on the other side on the block facing River St
Apparently this is the carpet district…
Main Street is about a mile long, and packed with stores. The only chains I can think of are CVS, Blimpie, and ReMax. It's a fun and engaging place to go strolling.
Banta Pl
That guy’s hairstyle looks like it has good traction.
The Bergen County courthouse is much nicer and more grand than the state capitol in Trenton.
It was rather cold.
Interesting cornice. Reminds me of water wheels.
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NJ Transit’s Bergen Line has stations in Hackensack on Essex and Anderson Streets. It’s maybe 20 minutes into Manhattan
Colonial-era church. I didn’t feel like standing in a foot of snow to read the plaque.
This must’ve been a nice building
Side street
Looks like that building lost a floor.
Heading out
Back downtown a few days after Chistmas, running some errands
Random block off E. Kansas St in south Hackensack
Businesses on Essex St
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Hackensack was my place of birth!! However I actually lived in Teaneck for the first two years of my life, until my parents moved out to the Kansas City area. Thanks a bunch for doing this thread!! 
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