On a Saturday morning in Norwood, the queue outside a bakery on Broad Avenue speaks Korean before it speaks anything else. The Koreans in Norwood, New Jersey did not arrive in a single wave or settle in a single street. They moved north up the Hudson Palisades, one good school district at a time, until this quiet borough of fewer than six thousand people became one of the most concentrated Korean American communities in the United States.
The Place
Norwood is a borough of about 2.8 square miles in northeastern Bergen County, roughly two miles from the New York state line. It was settled around 1670 by Dutch families under the Tappan Patent, took its name from its position in the old “North Woods”, and seceded from Harrington Township to incorporate as an independent borough on 14 March 1905.
For most of the twentieth century it was a leafy commuter suburb, family homes on wide lots, a primary school, a couple of historic stone houses dating to the colonial era. The median household income now runs comfortably into six figures, and the public schools are among the better-regarded in New Jersey.
What changed Norwood was not its housing stock but who came to buy it. By the 2020 census, 32.1 per cent of the borough’s 5,641 residents identified as Asian, the great majority of them Korean American.
How It Became Korean
To understand the Koreans in Norwood you have to understand the Northern Valley, the cluster of small Bergen County boroughs that runs along the foot of the Palisades. Korean settlement here did not begin in Norwood. It began further south, in Fort Lee and Palisades Park, and worked its way uphill.
The Bergen County foundation
Bergen County holds the densest concentration of Korean Americans anywhere in the country. As of the 2022 American Community Survey, people of Korean ancestry made up about 6.5 per cent of the county’s population, the highest share of any county in the United States. More than half of New Jersey’s entire Korean population lives within Bergen County’s borders.
The commercial heart of that community is Broad Avenue in Palisades Park, the densest Korean business district in the county, where shop signs, restaurants and offices serve a population that is majority Korean American. For new arrivals through the 1980s and 1990s, Palisades Park and Fort Lee were the obvious first stop: affordable, dense, and already Korean.
The move north up the valley
The next generation, and the families who arrived with more savings, looked for something the dense river towns could not offer: larger houses, quieter streets, and above all schools. That search pushed them north and west through the Northern Valley, into Closter, Cresskill, Demarest, Old Tappan and Norwood.
By 2010, all ten of the American municipalities with the highest percentage of Korean residents were located in Bergen County. Norwood was on that list, alongside Palisades Park, Leonia, Ridgefield, Fort Lee, Closter, Englewood Cliffs, Edgewater, Cresskill and Demarest. Its Korean American share at that point sat around 20 per cent and kept climbing.
Why Norwood specifically
Norwood offered a particular combination. It feeds into the Northern Valley Regional High School at Old Tappan, a regional school it shares with Harrington Park, Northvale and Old Tappan, consistently ranked among the stronger public high schools in the state. It had detached single-family homes rather than the apartments of the river towns. And it was close enough to the established Korean infrastructure of Palisades Park and Englewood that no family had to give up the food, churches and shops they relied on.
That last point matters. A family could buy a house in Norwood and still be a ten-minute drive from a Korean supermarket, a Korean-speaking doctor, a Korean church and a Korean cram school. The borough offered the American suburban dream without the isolation that usually came with it.
Institutions take root
As families settled, the institutions followed. Chodae Community Church, a Korean Presbyterian congregation, was founded in Norwood in 1986 with around fifty members. By 2000 it had grown to roughly seven hundred, and the congregation sought approval for a large new facility on Rockland Avenue, complete with two sanctuaries, classrooms, a gymnasium and a kitchen.
That growth was not always smooth. The expansion drew objections from some neighbours, organised through the Norwood Civic Association, who raised concerns about flooding and Sunday traffic near the borough’s athletic complex. It was the ordinary friction of a small town absorbing a fast-growing institution, and the church endured.
Even the borough’s oldest Protestant congregation changed shape. The Presbyterian Church of Norwood, which began holding services in 1858, voted in 2018 to become a formally multicultural congregation, holding worship in both English and Korean and bringing American and Korean American members together under one roof.
The Landmarks
Chodae Community Church, 100 Rockland Avenue, Norwood. Founded in 1986 with about fifty worshippers, this Korean Presbyterian congregation grew to roughly seven hundred members within fourteen years. It runs ministries in Korean, English and Japanese, and operates an additional educational facility nearby on Rockland Avenue in Northvale. For many Norwood families it is the centre of the week, not the edge of it.
Presbyterian Church of Norwood. One of the borough’s oldest congregations, holding services since 1858, it formally became a multicultural church in 2018 and now worships in both English and Korean. Its decision to merge American and Korean American worship under one roof is a small, deliberate statement about what Norwood has become.
Northern Valley Regional High School at Old Tappan. The regional high school that Norwood shares with Harrington Park, Northvale and Old Tappan is consistently ranked among New Jersey’s stronger public schools. It is, more than any house or shop, the reason many Korean families chose this corner of the valley, and its student body reflects that choice.
Blauvelt House, 54 Tappan Road, Norwood. A stone Dutch colonial house built around 1700 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places, it predates the borough itself by two centuries. It is a reminder that the same streets now lined with Korean American families were first cleared by Dutch settlers under the Tappan Patent.
Ferdon House, Norwood. Another of the borough’s National Register properties, built in the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century, the Ferdon House anchors Norwood’s pre-suburban past. The continuity of these stone houses, surrounded now by very different neighbours, is part of what makes the borough feel settled rather than newly built.
Woori Mart, Northvale. Just over the border in neighbouring Northvale, this Korean marketplace, with a food court and a full grocery, is one of the everyday anchors for Norwood households. Korean retail in the Northern Valley tends to cluster a town or two over rather than inside Norwood’s own modest commercial strip, and residents move easily across these borough lines.
H Mart, Englewood. The Korean American supermarket chain H Mart, which began in Queens in the 1980s and grew into the largest Asian grocery chain in the country, operates a nearby store in Englewood that serves Northern Valley families. For Norwood residents it is part of the same short-radius web of Korean shops, doctors and restaurants that made moving here possible without losing the day-to-day texture of Korean life.
Where They Came From
The Koreans of Norwood are overwhelmingly part of the post-1965 wave of Korean immigration to the United States, which accelerated after the Immigration and Nationality Act opened the door to Asian arrivals. Many came from the Seoul metropolitan area and the wider South Korean cities, often as professionals, entrepreneurs and parents focused intently on education.
Their route to Norwood, though, was rarely direct from Korea. The more common path ran through the dense Korean districts further south: a first apartment in Palisades Park or Fort Lee, a business along Broad Avenue, and then, as savings and children accumulated, a move up the valley to a house in a town with a better-ranked school.
This is chain migration in its classic form, but layered. The first link connects Korea to the Palisades river towns. The second link connects those towns to the Northern Valley boroughs like Norwood. Each new family that arrived made the next family’s move easier, because the church, the grocery and the network were already in place.
Norwood Today
Norwood today is a borough where roughly a third of residents are Asian and most of those are Korean American, woven into a town that still counts colonial Dutch stone houses among its landmarks. The two histories do not so much blend as coexist, street by street, in a place small enough that everyone shares the same school and the same shops.
The community is visible in ordinary ways. The public library marks Korean holidays, including the Chuseok harvest festival, with music and cultural demonstrations. Korean is among the languages taught in the regional high school. And on weekend mornings the rhythm of the borough bends toward Korean church services and Korean grocery runs across the borough line.
It is not a Koreatown in the commercial sense; the dense storefronts remain down in Palisades Park. Norwood is something quieter and, in its way, more telling: a small American suburb that a community chose deliberately, for its schools and its calm, and then made its own. If you want to compare how this pattern repeated elsewhere, it echoes the Korean communities in Bellevue, Washington and Frisco, Texas, both suburbs where good schools drew Korean families in numbers.
The same school-driven, suburb-by-suburb logic shaped Korean settlement in Cary, North Carolina and Anaheim Hills, California. And Norwood’s own corner of Bergen County sits among other Northern Valley communities Atlas of Home has traced, including the Israelis in Tenafly and the Pakistanis in Edison, each a New Jersey suburb reshaped by a single determined community.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many Koreans live in Norwood, New Jersey?
Norwood had a population of 5,641 at the 2020 census, of whom 32.1 per cent identified as Asian, the great majority Korean American. The borough’s Korean American share has grown from around 20 per cent in 2010 and remains one of the highest in the country, part of the broader concentration of Koreans in Bergen County.
Why did so many Koreans settle in Norwood?
Norwood offered detached family homes, a quiet suburban setting, and access to the well-regarded Northern Valley Regional High School at Old Tappan. It also sits close to the established Korean infrastructure of Palisades Park, Fort Lee and Englewood, so families could move up the valley without giving up Korean churches, groceries and services.
Is Norwood part of Bergen County’s Korean community?
Yes. Bergen County holds the highest share of Korean Americans of any county in the United States, with more than half of New Jersey’s Korean population living within its borders. Norwood is one of the Northern Valley boroughs, alongside Closter, Cresskill and Demarest, where Korean families settled as they moved north from the river towns.
Where do Norwood’s Korean residents shop and worship?
Korean churches such as Chodae Community Church on Rockland Avenue anchor the community within Norwood itself, while Korean groceries like Woori Mart in neighbouring Northvale and H Mart in Englewood serve daily shopping needs. Much of the dense Korean commercial life remains a short drive away in Palisades Park.
What is the history of Norwood, New Jersey?
Norwood was settled around 1670 by Dutch families under the Tappan Patent and incorporated as a borough on 14 March 1905. Colonial stone houses such as the Blauvelt House, built around 1700, still stand. The Korean American community is a much more recent chapter, growing rapidly from the 1980s onward.
Are there Korean schools or cultural programmes in Norwood?
The regional high school offers Korean among its language courses, and the Norwood public library marks Korean holidays such as the Chuseok harvest festival with cultural events. Korean churches in the area also run educational and youth ministries, including weekend programmes for younger generations.
If your family’s story passed through Norwood, or any of the places Koreans have made home in America, Atlas of Home can trace that journey. From a first apartment in Palisades Park to a house on a quiet Northern Valley street, to wherever you are now.