by Maggie Fazeli Fard
Published in Community Life
When 17-year-old Boy Scout Robbie Hanrahan embarked on refurbishing the Montvale Train Station last year, he anticipated providing a decent space for exercise classes and other community activities while achieving the sought after rank of Eagle Scout.
Little did he know, however, that lurking in the station’s attic was a little piece of “buried” treasure, giving him and his friends a peek into the nomadic history of the Montvale Police Department.
Cops on the move
The concept of official law enforcement was introduced to the Borough of Montvale in 1894 when the first marshal, a predecessor of the police officers of today, was appointed at a salary of $3 a day, serving on an “as needed” basis. In the more than 30 years that followed, more marshals were hired, sometimes for no compensation, but it wasn’t until 1931, thanks to funds raised through a dance event, that the “police department” could afford to erect an actual headquarters.
“It was a booth,” says Borough Historian Maria “Ree” Hopper bemusedly, pulling out a black and white photograph, circa 1937, picturing three men decked out in uniforms that fit them with varying degrees of success. The officers, three of the five that comprised the department by that time, are standing in front of what can indeed be described as nothing more than a booth, and side by side the trio very nearly match the entire width of the station.
“That was pretty much the whole department in this stupid, little booth,” says Hopper with a giggle. “They started out in this tiny police booth at the intersection of Grand and Kinderkamack.”
Across the street there was a combination paper store/soda shop/candy store called Eisenberg’s, she explains. There was a bell located on the outside of the police booth and when the police officers weren’t there, Mr. Eisenberg would run across the street and answer calls.
“That’s why they put the bell on the outside,” says Hopper, “so Mr. Eisenberg could hear it.”
The booth was in use for nearly a decade, and in 1942 the department moved into roomier lodgings, a former schoolhouse known as School #1. (School #1, located on Summit Avenue, had previously been the school for children who lived on the west side of the borough. School #2, appropriately, was used by students who lived on the east side.)
In 1954, the police department moved back to the borough’s downtown, this time renting out the Erie Railroad passenger station. During the course of that year, the station came to house borough hall as well as police headquarters.
In 1971, the police moved again, this time to the old borough hall located on Memorial Drive; the police station finally ended up in the new borough hall on Mercedes Drive in 2004.
While the department found itself on the move every so often, some of its records managed to stay put.
Hidden history
Hanrahan was tired when he found the hatch in the ceiling of train station. He and the other scouts he had wrangled up to help him with his Eagle Scout project had been working on the train station for months, replacing the drop ceiling, lighting and flooring of the station, as well painting the interior walls of the two community meeting rooms and the commuter waiting areas.
Hanrahan began the project in March 2007 after hearing that the train station had fallen into such disrepair that Rose Freeman was forced to cancel the community exercise classes she led there. The work had come a long way by the time summer came around, and it was during a day of painting that Hanrahan noticed the door in the ceiling.
“I was curious,” explains Hanrahan, admitting that he really had no idea what to expect as he pushed the door open.
In the attic, he found boxes that contained police records from the 1930s and 1940s as well as old advertisements and a letter from the J. Edgar Hoover, head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), to the Montvale Police Chief. The letter urged the local police department to support the use of fingerprinting as a means of identifying individuals. At that time, the practice was viewed by the general public as an infringement of privacy.
“I was really surprised,” he says.
After taking a quick look through what they had found, Hanrahan and his friends called the Montvale Police Department to report their discovery.
While Hopper spends most of her days in a borough hall office just one floor above the police station, she has yet to see the recovered records and paraphernalia that is now in the department’s possession.
The historian says she is very eager to take a look through the contents of the boxes that Hanrahan found, particularly with the hope of finding a police report from a 1947 incident that had long been Montvale’s “claim to fame.” That year, Montvale Police apprehended an escaped convict.
The man, a convicted murderer, had once served time in Alcatraz, says Hopper, and was being held in a Brooklyn jail when he escaped. He was originally from Park Ridge and, after breaking free, he jumped on a train headed for Pascack Valley .
“He got on the train and hid in Montvale at St. Paul ’s Episcopal Church, the old stone church,” says Hopper. “A parishioner who happened to be walking by noticed that a window to the basement had been broken. He called the police and, along with Officer [George] Patt, went down. The guy surrendered right away.”
The man was believed to be the brains behind the nine-man jailbreak, but he was the first one caught by police. The only record Hopper has of the incident is an old Alaska newspaper that printed a copy of the story by Associated Press.
Hanrahan completed his Eagle Scout project last July. Now, not only does the police department have its records back, but Rose Freeman’s exercise classes has moved back in and other community groups have begun to use the station as a meeting place.
“It went very well,” says Hanrahan, who was named Eagle Scout after his final review in March. “It went better than I thought it would.”
For more information about the history of Montvale’s police department, visit the Historic Preservation section on www.montvale.org. For more information about scouting, visit the Montvale Boy Scout Troop 334 Web site at www.montvalescouts.com or the Montvale Pack 336 Cub Scouts Web site at www.pack336.com.
Tagged: Community Life, history, montvale, new jersey, pascack valley, police