What's Happening in Palisades Park

It is the last full week of September, and this edition replaces the September 17 update as the current community roundup. The week brought a free health screening at Borough Hall, the opening of the Chuseok holiday weekend, two big Saturday events in the GWB corridor, one final weekend of Restaurant Week, and a fresh mortgage reading. Here is this week's verified roundup, with last week's items archived below.

Coming Up

Each item below was checked against event listings on this run. Late September, then October:

• Colonial Superstition & Magic living-history program takes place today, Thursday, September 24, in the Palisades Interstate Park.
• Corn Harvest Moon Saturday and Sunday, September 26-27 at State Line Lookout, timed to the harvest moon that rises September 26, with the park's Lawn Games at Ross Dock continuing on Saturdays.
• "The Old Ladies Bar" world premiere by the Players Guild of Leonia and Kaleidoscope Ensemble runs the week of September 23-29.
• Palisades Park Street Festival Saturday, October 3, 11:00 AM to 6:00 PM at 275 Broad Avenue, free entry with vendors, food, and live music, per the borough's event listing.
• Demarest Oktoberfest Saturday, October 3, 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM at the Demarest Duck Pond, and HACKENSACKtoberfest the same day, 1:00 to 8:00 PM on Atlantic Street in Hackensack.
• Be Fort Lee Artisan Market, October edition, Saturday, October 10, noon to 5:00 PM at Hudson Lights Park, presented by the Fort Lee BDA, with its Holiday Night Market following December 5.
• MetLife in October: Jets vs. Browns Sunday, October 11 at 1:00 PM; Usher & Chris Brown's The R&B Tour Thursday, October 15 at 7:30 PM; Giants vs. Saints Sunday, October 18 at 1:00 PM; Jets vs. Dolphins Sunday, October 25 at 1:00 PM.
• Fall O Ween Saturday, October 24 in Fort Lee, the Fort Lee BDA's family Halloween festival.

Broad Avenue Dining Scene

No new restaurant opening on Broad Avenue was confirmed during the past week, so the corridor's recent additions remain the story. Cafe Ssum & Karaoke continues at 450 Broad Avenue with private karaoke rooms open daily to 2:00 AM, and Crazy Pocha keeps its late-night rooms running at 42 Broad Avenue on the second floor. Lee & Bai at 442 Broad Avenue and D'avant Bakery at 449 Broad Avenue, Unit 1, for Korean-style pastries and chilled desserts, remain the newest bakery additions of 2026. Dipped 'n' Smashed, the Hoboken smash-burger and Nashville hot chicken restaurant, is coming soon to 187 Main Street in Fort Lee at Hudson Lights, its second location.

New to the closure list this week, Yupdduk at 413 Broad Avenue, the Korean corn dog chain location, is now flagged closed on Yelp with its listing updated in June-July 2026. It joins Bleu on Broad (330 Broad Avenue, updated August 2026), You Chun (133 Broad Avenue), Yechun (18 Broad Avenue), and Picnic Cafe (202 Broad Avenue, flagged in September). Earlier closings still on the record: Crown Restaurant & Lounge (243 Broad Avenue), Mandarin Restaurant (110 Broad Avenue), Golden Eagle Diner (239 Broad Avenue), and Pho32 Shabu Shabu (225 Broad Avenue). Restaurant Week's final weekend through September 27 should keep the district busy either way.

Borough Programs

The headline borough item this week is the Friday, September 25 grand opening of the new municipal parking lot at 12 Bellview Place at 12:30 PM. Free evening meter parking (free after 6:00 PM Monday through Saturday) continues under the council's current extension through September 30, and resident permits renew online through the My Palisades Park portal without a trip to Borough Hall. Fall recreation is in full swing: the tennis camp runs Wednesdays through October 14, the yoga series runs Saturdays through November 7, and the free fall concert with the Summer Breeze Band lands Saturday, September 26 at 1:00 PM.

Transit Update

Routes 165 and 166. NJ Transit's travel alerts page lists no active advisory for either route as of this run, and the Route 166 detour between Route 4 and Grand Avenue in Leonia that appeared in the September 17 update is no longer listed. Bergen Boulevard service on both routes should be treated as running normal schedules, but advisories can appear at any time, so riders should check njtransit.com the morning of travel.

Port Jervis Line. Buses continue to replace trains between Suffern and Port Jervis for infrastructure work, with the substitution running weekends through Sunday, October 11 plus weekday off-peak service through the fall. Connections are staged at Ramsey/Route 17, with local buses serving stations from Sloatsburg through Port Jervis.

Restoring the George. The northbound Center Avenue bridge over the GWB approach in Fort Lee remains under long-term closure through at least the end of December 2026, extended from an earlier through-September estimate. The right lane and sidewalk have been closed since January 12, 2026, joined by the ramp from New Jersey-bound I-95 to Center Avenue and the ramp from Center Avenue to New York-bound I-95. Work is staged to keep two travel lanes open, and the replacement south sidewalk still targets completion by the end of 2026.

Light rail. The Northern Branch Corridor extension, which would add stations including Palisades Park, remains in environmental review with no construction timeline confirmed.

Market Snapshot

Verified on this run, September 24, 2026. September countywide totals have not published yet, so July remains the latest NJ REALTORS county report, with the June Greater Bergen Realtors reading as the freshest condo segment figure:

The July NJ REALTORS report still leads the county benchmarks: single-family median sold near $949,500, up 8.5 percent from a year earlier on 26 days on market and roughly 1,120 active homes. For condo buyers, the freshest readout is June's Greater Bergen Realtors townhouse and condo median of $541,225, essentially flat year over year, on 188 closed sales. That frames a listing like 201 12th St APT 19, an extensively renovated one-bedroom at $249,900 with heat, hot water, and garage parking in the maintenance fee, squarely in the segment of the market where buyers currently hold the most negotiating room.

Mortgage: Freddie Mac's Primary Mortgage Market Survey, released September 17, put the 30 year fixed average at 6.95 percent, up 19 basis points from 6.76 percent the prior week and up from 6.26 percent a year earlier. Daily quotes move constantly, so buyers should check current pricing with a lender and lock deliberately. Note also that Redfin's rolling three-month countywide median through August reads about $834,000, up 4.2 percent year over year at roughly $450 per square foot.

Development Watch

Daewoo E&C. Daewoo Engineering and Construction's roughly $291 million, 18-story, 540-unit apartment complex with ground-floor retail and parking at 121-131 West Ruby Avenue and 20-40 Fairview Street was finalized June 30 and announced July 3, 2026, with Daewoo participating as co-developer alongside the Tamares Group. Construction is targeted for 2028-2031 with completion expected in 2031, and the land closing was expected by the end of July. No newer public status update has been published in the past week.

The Grandline. The 510-unit mixed-use at 21 Grand Avenue pairs two towers (17 and 19 stories) with roughly 175,000 square feet of two-story open-air retail, a hotel and wellness center, and 102 affordable units. It secured site-plan approval in April 2026 and reported Planning Board approval in early June; no new development was announced this week.

In the News This Week

The week's story front: the borough announced a Friday ribbon cutting for its new Bellview Place parking lot, hosted a free health screening Tuesday, and the Chuseok weekend opened a busy retail stretch on Broad Avenue. AC/DC returns to MetLife Friday and the Giants host the Titans Sunday. In Leonia, the 27th Annual Oktoberfest and the Players Guild's world premiere run side by side, the Palisades Half Marathon closes the county's weekend book at Fort Lee Historic Park, and Restaurant Week serves its final days. On the business side, no new Broad Avenue opening was confirmed this week while Yupdduk joined the corridor's closure list, and on the market side the mortgage average rose to 6.95 percent.