Englewood, New Jersey

How Englewood is governed

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1 of 14 positions listed. Gray dashed boxes are placeholders waiting for a name.

• Mayor

  Executive

  • Michael Wildes per Wikidata

  The city's chief elected official. Presides over the executive branch, proposes the budget and represents the city.

  • City Manager / Administrator

    Executive

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    The professional administrator who runs day-to-day operations (in some cities appointed by the council instead of the mayor).

    • Police Chief

      Administration & departments

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      Leads the police department.

    • Fire Chief

      Administration & departments

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      Leads the fire and emergency services department.

    • Public Works Director

      Administration & departments

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      Streets, water, sewer, and city buildings.

    • Finance Director

      Administration & departments

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      The budget, taxes, and city accounts.

    • Planning & Zoning Director

      Administration & departments

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      Land use, zoning, building permits.

    • Parks & Recreation Director

      Administration & departments

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      Parks, programs, and public facilities.

• City Council

  Legislative

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  The elected body that passes ordinances, sets the tax rate and approves the budget.

  • City Clerk

    Administration & departments

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    Keeps the official records, runs meeting agendas and, often, local elections.

  • City Attorney

    Administration & departments

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    The city's lawyer; advises officials and prosecutes ordinance violations.

  • Boards & Commissions

    Legislative

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    Citizen advisory bodies, such as planning, zoning appeals and library boards.

• Municipal Court

  Judicial

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  Hears traffic, ordinance and other minor cases.

  • Municipal Judge

    Judicial

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    Presides over the municipal court.

Website

cityofenglewood.org

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Population over time

From 27,147 in 2010 to 29,308 in 2020 (+8.0%).

History

Etymology

Englewood Township, the city's predecessor, is believed to have been named in 1859 for the Engle family. The community had been called the "English Neighborhood", as the first primarily English-speaking settlement on the New Jersey side of the Hudson River after New Netherland was annexed by England in 1664, though other sources mention the Engle family and the heavily forested areas of the community as the derivation of the name. Other sources indicate that the name is derived from "wood ingle", meaning "woody nook", or that the name was coined anew.

Numerous other settlements in the United States were named for Englewood as settlement in North America expanded westward. J. Wyman Jones is credited with convincing residents to choose Englewood for the city's name when it was incorporated over such alternatives as "Brayton" and "Paliscena".

Pre-Colonial and Colonial eras

Englewood, like the rest of New Jersey, was populated by Lenape Native Americans prior to European colonization. The Lenape who lived in the Englewood region were of the "turtle clan" which used a stylized turtle as its symbol. 2,000 Lenape originally lived in Englewood, but due to conflicts with the Europeans their population dwindled down to 50 by 1832.

When Henry Hudson sailed up what would become known as the Hudson River in 1607, he claimed the entirety of the watershed of the river, including Englewood, for the Netherlands, making the future region of Englewood a part of New Netherland. However, the region remained largely unsettled under Dutch rule as the Dutch did little to encourage settlement north of modern Hudson County, as the imposing New Jersey Palisades blocked expansion on the west bank of the Hudson.

In 1664, after the Dutch surrendered all of New Netherland to England, the rate of settlement picked up. The English were generous with land grants, and many families, not only English but also Dutch and Huguenot, settled the area, which during the colonial era was known as the English Neighborhood. Street names in Englewood still recall the relative diversity of its earliest settlers; Brinckerhoff, Van Brunt, Lydecker, Van Nostrand and Durie (Duryea), all Dutch; Demarest (de Marais), DeMott and Lozier (Le Sueur), French Huguenot; and Moore, Lawrence, Cole and Day, English.

Historical notes

From 1906 until March 16, 1907, when it burned down, Englewood was the site of Upton Sinclair's socialist-inflected intentional community, the Helicon Home Colony. Associated with the project were Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Sinclair Lewis.

Direct distance dialing, which allowed callers to reach other users outside their local calling area without operator assistance, was introduced to the public in Englewood. On November 10, 1951, Englewood Mayor M. Leslie Denning made the first customer-dialed long-distance call, to Mayor Frank Osborne of Alameda, California. As of that date, customers of the Englewood 3, Englewood 4 and Teaneck 7 exchanges, who could already dial some exchanges in the New York City area, were able to dial 11 cities across the United States by dialing the three-digit area code preceding the local number.

Two years after his graduation from Fordham University, Vince Lombardi began his football coaching career at Englewood's St. Cecilia High School, which closed in 1986.

The Sugarhill Gang recorded "Rapper's Delight" in 1979, the first hip-hop single to become a Top 40 hit.

Historic sites

Sites in the city listed on the National Register of Historic Places include:

John G. Benson House (at 60 Grand Avenue; added January 9, 1983)

Thomas Demarest House (at 370 Grand Avenue; added January 9, 1983)

Garret Lydecker House (at 228 Grand Avenue; added January 9, 1983)

St. Paul's Episcopal Church (at 113 Engle Street; added May 5, 2014)

Demott–Westervelt House (at 285 Grand Avenue; added January 9, 1983)

Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

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