Grantwood, New Jersey | |
|---|---|
  Grantwood Location of Grantwood in Bergen County in New Jersey Show map of Bergen County, New Jersey Grantwood Grantwood (New Jersey) Show map of New Jersey Grantwood Grantwood (the United States) Show map of the United States | |
| Coordinates:40°49′36″N73°59′13″W / 40.82667°N 73.98694°W /40.82667; -73.98694 | |
| Country |  United States |
| State |  New Jersey |
| County | Bergen |
| Boroughs | Cliffside Park,Ridgefield |
| Elevation | 269 ft (82 m) |
| Area codes | 201/551 |
| GNIS feature ID | 876712[1] |
Grantwood is anunincorporated community straddling theboroughs ofCliffside Park andRidgefield, just south ofFort Lee, in easternBergen County,New Jersey, United States.[2]
Grantwood Heights Land Company was incorporated on February 16, 1900 by Frank Knox.[3] He bought land in the area, including what would later becomePalisades Amusement Park. Grantwood was so dubbed in the beginning of the 20th century and takes its name from its location on theHudson Palisades across theHudson River fromGrant's Tomb (40°48′48″N73°57′47″W / 40.813333°N 73.963056°W /40.813333; -73.963056) inManhattan,New York City which was reached by130th Street Ferry atEdgewater.[4][5][6][7][8]
Grantwood was an artist's colony established in 1913 byMan Ray andSamuel Halpert, and became the artistic center for a collective known as the "Others" group of artists.[9][10][11] The colony consisted of a number of clapboard shacks on a bluff. Some names of the streets in this part of Ridgefield Heights — Sketch Place, Studio Road, and Art Lane — pay homage to Grantwood's history.[12] The first issue ofThe Glebe, a literary magazine, was published at the colony in 1913.[13] In 1915,Alfred Kreymborg launchedOthers: A Magazine of the New Verse withSkipwith Cannell,Wallace Stevens, andWilliam Carlos Williams. Along with works of the founders it published work ofMaxwell Bodenheim,Mina Loy,Marianne Moore,Ezra Pound,Carl Sandburg, andOrrick Johns among others.[14][15]Walter Conrad Arensberg was influential in supporting the colony.[16]
Thehistory of cinema in the United States can trace its roots to theEast Coast where, at one time,Fort Lee, just north of Grantwood, was themotion picture capital of America.[17][18][19]
The E.K.Lincoln Studio was built in 1915 in Grantwood onBergen Boulevard[20] and was owned and operated byE.K. Lincoln, who was both an actor and movie maker. Many in the early film world worked out of this studio and used various spots in the area for location work.[21] The first production wasThe Fighting Chance in which Lincoln starred alongsideViolet Horner[22] (who also starred inThe Girl from Alaska). Between 1916 and 1917, the studio was rented byFox Film.[23] In 1920 the United States Photoplay Corporation used it for the filmDetermination. In 1923, Peter Jones produced the filmHow High Is Up?.[24][25] According toFilm Daily (June 1926), the first episode ofThe Leather Pushers (1922) withReginald Denny was filmed there. After World War I, many movie makers, including Lincoln, headed out to Hollywood where the climate enable them to film outdoors all year round. Aftertalkies came into being in 1927, the studio continued to be used to make Italian and Polish language films. By the end of the Depression, the studio was no longer for film production. The building burnt down the 1960s.[12]
