New Milford, NJ

The Hackensack River gives New Milford both its best-known historic site and an active land-use question. Historic New Bridge Landing State Park spans the river where New Milford, River Edge, Teaneck, and Hackensack meet. The nearly 30-acre site preserves a strategic Revolutionary War crossing and contains the Steuben, Campbell-Christie, and Demarest houses, a nineteenth-century barn, and the foundation of a tidal mill. Farther along the same river, flood risk has moved from emergency response into long-term planning. The borough and New Jersey's Blue Acres program are working with Rutgers on possible restoration uses for acquired flood-buyout properties; a second resident meeting was scheduled for August 2026 to review landscape concepts shaped by earlier feedback. New Milford Public Library connects cardholders to five million items through the 78-member Bergen County Cooperative Library System. Its adult services include English conversation groups and individual tutoring, citizenship preparation, on-demand technology help, and loans of iPads and mobile hotspots.

The borough's Senior Activity Center adds a separate weekday setting for wellness, strength, creative, and social programs. New Milford grew modestly from 16,923 residents in the 2020 census to an estimated 17,133 in 2025. Its 2020-2024 profile was notably international: 30 percent of residents were foreign-born, 20 percent were Asian, 21 percent were Hispanic or Latino, and 43 percent of people age five or older spoke a language other than English at home. Owner occupancy was 61 percent. A mortgage-bearing owner household had median monthly costs of $3,335, compared with median gross rent of $1,765; the median owner-occupied home was valued at $580,400. Median household income was $114,889, and workers' mean travel time was 29 minutes. The library's language and citizenship services directly address one of the borough's clearest present-day demographic features.