Who was Lee of Fort Lee, Votee of Votee Park and Merritt of Camp Merritt? The Name-Dropper gives you the lowdown on some of the people whose names you see on public statues, memorial plaques, park signs, highways and even some local streets around North Jersey.
If not for a collective change of heart by citizens of North Jersey’s least-populous municipality, today we’d be tooling along Route 46 in Bendix, not Teterboro, and corporate bigwigs and Justin Bieber would be arriving at Bendix Airport which is adjacent to Hasbrouck Heights.
Teterboro was carved out of swamps in 1917 by the investment banker Walter C. Teter, who snapped up 700 acres in Hasbrouck Heights, Little Ferry and Moonachie with plans to develop a racetrack. The newly incorporated town was named for Teter, but his racetrack dreams crashed and burned. After Teter sold a chunk of the town to aviation interests, Teterboro Airport was born.
In 1937 — eight years after Teter’s death — the town and airport got a needed jolt when Vincent Hugo Bendix, an Illinois-born inventor and magnate who revolutionized automobile brakes and aircraft engines, purchased 100 acres from Teter’s estate for the development of a $3 million aircraft-parts factory. The Teterboro populace was thrilled, and on April 14, 1937, all but one of the 26 registered voters said yes to renaming the town and the airport for Bendix.
The Bendix Aviation Corp.’s arrival was a big deal. Jobs were created. The airport surged. Vincent Bendix added a second, Cleveland-to-Bendix lap to his famous Los Angeles-to-Cleveland Bendix Trophy air race.
But while his New Jersey plant prospered during the World War II years, difficulties mounted for the high-living Vincent Bendix. He filed for personal bankruptcy. General Motors, a controlling investor in Bendix Aviation, stripped him of some of his influence. He resigned as board chairman in 1942 amid allegations — never substantiated — of company ties to Nazi Germany.
And on June 1, 1943, the good citizens of Bendix, N.J., went to the polls once again. This time, they took back the name Teterboro for the borough and the airport.
Vincent Bendix died from a coronary thrombosis in 1945. Not long after, a railroad-car greasy spoon opened on Route 17 in Hasbrouck Heights, a stone’s throw from the Bendix Aviation plant and its thousands of hungry workers.
