Town file
Fair Lawn, New Jersey
Fair Lawn, New Jersey (Bergen County, New Jersey) is the town in one episode of Small Town Murder, the comedy true-crime podcast: episode 251, "The Nightmare House" (25 November 2021). Fair Lawn is a borough of about 32,900 people in Bergen County, in north-eastern New Jersey, roughly 35 minutes from New York City.
- Town
- Fair Lawn
- County
- Bergen County
- State
- New Jersey
- Country
- USA
- Episodes
- 251
- Approximate location
- 40.936, -74.118
Episode 251 / 25 November 2021 / 165 min / full
The Nightmare House
"We're going to go there, too. We're going to Fairlawn, New Jersey... Bergen County, it's in area code 201." about 0:05:46
The case: Murder of Phyllis Jacobus (March 14, 1973); Murder of Ruth Jacobus (November 22, 1984). Read the case file.
The figures, as told in 2021
- Population
- 32,877
- Median home value
- $493,600
- Two-bedroom rent
- $1,613
- Religious
- 65%
- Property crime
- ▼ about one-third under the national average
- Violent crime
- ▲ more than two-thirds under the national average
History, in brief
- The first settlers were members of the Lenape tribe, a peaceful hunting and gathering people who sold the land to Dutch and Irish settlers and then moved to Pennsylvania. about 0:09:13
- The area was divided into farm lots with two main roads through them. about 0:09:38
- It was named Sluder Dam, after a V-shaped sluice-like shipping weir built in the Passaic River. about 0:09:50
- Nobody would move there because the name was so off-putting, so in 1791 the land was broken into smaller lots with new roads and houses. about 0:10:43
- There were 80 houses by 1861, and the town was renamed Small Lots. about 0:10:59
- It was part of Saddle River Township, an agricultural community of vegetable farms, fruit farms and dairy interests. about 0:11:33
- Some farm owners built bigger homes as the community prospered. about 0:11:43
- The town eventually took the name Fair Lawn from somebody's estate, the nicest house in town. about 0:11:52
- In 1982 a New Jersey Transit train ran off the end of an industrial rail siding and crashed into a pasta factory, killing the engineer; the lead car travelled 60 feet into the building. about 0:12:32
- Five teenagers had tampered with the tracks; two of them were charged and convicted of manslaughter and given five-year sentences. about 0:15:04
- The town was traditionally a centre of Jewish culture, with many Russian and Orthodox Jews, and a large Italian population. about 0:15:17
The reviews read out
"The headline called Fair Lawn an unpretentious place that smells like cookies."about 0:16:08
5 stars
"They came to Fair Lawn in middle school, graduated from the high school, have lived in many towns and this one is their favourite, with plenty to do and everything close."about 0:16:42
4 stars
"A solid middle-class town that punches above its weight, good value for tax, unpretentious, excellent schools, many town services, diverse, family-friendly and very safe."about 0:17:10
2 stars
"Moved out mostly because of the taxes, crime and overdevelopment; it stopped feeling like a small town."about 0:18:37
2 stars
"Homes and taxes are overpriced, schools are better than average, and the locals who grew up there and stayed are awful, cliquish and exclusionary."about 0:18:53
Nearest Small Town Murder towns
- Garfield, New Jersey3.9 miles
- Demarest, New Jersey8.6 miles
- Ramsey, New Jersey8.8 miles
- Hanover Township, New Jersey18 miles
- Chatham Township, New Jersey19 miles
- Denville, New Jersey20 miles
Everything here is as told in the episode, on the date it went out; figures and places may have changed since. Endings are covered: open an episode and use the spoiler switch to read them.