The state of New Jersey has dedicated the “William J. Pascrell Jr. Highway,” honoring the late, longtime congressman and former Paterson mayor. Few citizens could claim an equivalent record of public service. A son of Italian immigrants and native Patersonian, Pascrell served for almost three decades as a state representative, and was instrumental in the effort to make the Great Falls into a national park. The honor is not without symmetry, even some irony.

Mr. Pascrell’s name is now attached to a three-mile stretch of freeway that these days goes by the name of Route 19. Back when it was built in the 1970s, this sprawling and virtually untraveled road was called Route 20, one of three – count them, three – separate and completely unconnected Route 20s, all within minutes of each other. Nope, not at all confusing.

I learned to drive in this northern part of New Jersey, which is an incalculable advantage when driving anywhere else. The motoring culture of the Garden State is, um, assertive at best, unforgiving at worst. A driver quickly learns the value of total focus and develops a supernatural sense of direction. Why? Because there are innuerable state and county “highways” and “routes” snaking through this small, historic region, many having evolved from pre-Revolutionary trails. In the days before GPS, you needed said sense of direction. And also, the mordant sense of humor that every Jerseyan keeps in their pocket.

For example, there was the matter of the three Route 20s. The original Route 20 runs along the east side of Paterson, on the west bank of the Passaic river. Since this is New Jersey, the road also has a second name of McLean Boulevard. From the 1950s on, there was another Route 20 in Rutherford or thereabouts, perhaps six miles away, near the colonial-era Paterson Plank Road. In 1975, yet a third Route 20 (today’s Route 19), connected next-door Clifton to Interstate 80. As I recall, Route 80 was the only available exit on that highway.

All this talk of exits; just like the jokes.

But if, by accident or design, one happened to drive past the lone exit, say after dark, what happened next was maybe no joke. This third Route 20 ended abruptly at a dingy corner of Grand Street, on the edge of Paterson’s old mill district. It seemed a puzzle that a modern, California-sized highway was built to terminate across the street from a jerk chicken joint. With no obvious signage to anywhere, including the way back, I can imagine a lot of confusion and rolled up windows until the correct guess of a left turn and then another (neither one marked, of course) took drivers back from whence they came – all the way back to the beginning of the highway.

I had always assumed that this most recent Route 20 – again, virtually untraveled in those days – was originally meant to provide easy highway access to downtown Paterson shopping.  That probably seemed like a better idea back when they were planning these things in 1959 than in the 1970s, when suburban indoor malls became the rage. Turns out, the real reason the highway stopped where it did was because it would have gone through the newly-protected Great Falls Historic District, a project that Pascrell was instrumental in bringing about.

So today, we finally get the happy ending. There is only one Route 20 – the original. The second Route 20 ultimately became Route 120. And the third (award winning!) Route 20 has long been Route 19, but is now also the William J. Pascrell Jr. Highway. Glad that’s finally cleared up.

Thank you, Mr. Pascrell, for your service!

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