My office is at 185 Bridge Plaza North, a few blocks from the George Washington Bridge toll plaza, and I have watched Fort Lee’s morning ritual from that corner for years. Express buses roll toward Manhattan every few minutes. Cyclists climb Hudson Terrace toward the bridge path. The gray towers of the GWB stand over all of it. No town in Bergen County lives closer to New York City, and no town wears that closeness more comfortably.
Fort Lee is a borough of roughly 40,000 people that runs from luxury high-rises on the edge of the Palisades to quiet single family streets on the west side of town. It has a genuine Koreatown along Main Street, a Revolutionary War encampment site on the cliffs, and a film museum that tells the story of the years when this town, not Hollywood, was the center of the American movie business. I work here every day, and I still find new reasons to recommend it. Here are the five that come up most with my buyers.
1. Manhattan Is a Bus Ride, Not a Commute
This is the headline, so let me be specific. NJ Transit routes 154, 156, 158, and 159 pick up in Fort Lee and cross the bridge, and the 159 is the workhorse: it runs to the Port Authority Bus Terminal in Midtown with first departures before 4 a.m. and last runs around 2 a.m. At peak hours buses come roughly every ten minutes, and the bridge’s rush hour bus lane keeps the schedule honest. Plan on about 25 to 40 minutes to Port Authority depending on traffic. Other routes drop you at the George Washington Bridge Bus Station in Washington Heights with a direct connection to the A train, which is often the fastest door to door option for anyone working uptown.
The main pickup points cluster around Bridge Plaza, Lemoine Avenue, and Main Street, steps from my office, and private jitney buses fill the gaps between NJ Transit runs. Drivers simply take the bridge. There are Manhattan commuters in this town who have never owned a monthly rail pass in their lives, because they have never needed one.
2. Two Housing Markets in One Zip Code
Fort Lee is really two markets, and that is its quiet advantage. The east side holds the high-rise condominiums and co-ops, including full service buildings along the Palisades with direct Hudson and skyline views. Because so much of the housing stock is condo and co-op, the borough’s overall median sale price sits in the mid 400s, while Bergen County’s single family median has climbed toward $880,000. Read that again: you can own a home with a Manhattan view here for less than half the price of the average Bergen County house.
Then there is the west side, where Fort Lee looks like any established suburban town: single family colonials, capes, and split levels on residential streets, including the historic Coytesville section at the north end. Those homes trade at a premium because inventory is tight countywide, but they give families a yard and a neighborhood feel five minutes from the bridge. Very few towns let a first time condo buyer and a move-up house buyer both land well, and Fort Lee does.
3. Main Street Runs on Seoul Time
More than 40 percent of Fort Lee residents are of Asian descent, anchored by one of the most established Korean American communities in the country, and Main Street shows it. Korean barbecue houses, soft tofu specialists, bakeries, and cafes line the corridor, some of them serving around the clock. This is not a themed dining district built for visitors. It is a working downtown where the food is cooked for people who grew up on it, which is exactly why the rest of us eat so well here.
Main Street also holds the Barrymore Film Center, a 253 seat cinema and film museum that opened in 2022 to honor Fort Lee’s run as the birthplace of the American film industry, back when the early studios shot on these cliffs. Between the restaurants, the film center’s festivals, and the everyday street life, downtown Fort Lee has an energy most suburbs simply do not have.
4. The Palisades Are Your Backyard
Fort Lee Historic Park sits on 33 acres atop the cliffs just south of the bridge, on the ground where Washington’s army camped in 1776. There is a visitor center, reconstructed gun batteries and a soldier’s hut, and two overlooks with views of the George Washington Bridge, the Hudson, and the upper Manhattan skyline that stop first time visitors in their tracks. I send every out of town buyer there before we look at a single home, because it explains the town faster than I can.
From there, Palisades Interstate Park stretches north along the river with miles of trails, both on the clifftop and down at the water’s edge. Runners, cyclists, and hikers get a true wilderness corridor that starts inside the borough. It is a strange and wonderful fact of Fort Lee life that you can be on a quiet river trail ten minutes after stepping off a bus from Midtown.
5. Schools That Outperform the Price of Entry
The Fort Lee School District serves about 4,000 students and earns an A minus overall grade from Niche, which rates it a highly regarded district statewide. Fort Lee High School enrolls roughly 1,170 students with a 13 to 1 student teacher ratio, and state testing shows 67 percent proficiency in math and 73 percent in reading, both comfortably above state averages. The student body reflects the town itself, which means kids grow up in classrooms that look like the world they will work in.
Here is the part I underline for young families: those schools come attached to condo and co-op price points. In much of Bergen County, buying into a well regarded district means a single family price tag. In Fort Lee, a two bedroom condo gets your children the same seat. For buyers who want to plant a flag in Bergen County without stretching to the top of their budget, that math is hard to beat.
Where to Eat in Fort Lee
Fort Lee eats better than towns three times its size. The Korean food along Main Street and Palisade Avenue is the real thing, the Italian roots run back generations, and the high-rise corridor supports a genuine special occasion restaurant. These six are where I send clients, and where I actually go myself.
Ventanas at the Modern
Chef David Burke and restaurateur Alexander Duran built Ventanas at the base of The Modern towers on Park Avenue, and it is Fort Lee’s glamour spot: a 7,000 square foot room with a tapas lounge, a serious bar, and a menu that moves between American, Latin, and Asian ideas. The lobster dumplings and the clothesline bacon are the famous orders for a reason.
It draws a dressed up crowd on weekends, and OpenTable diners rate it 4.4 stars across more than two thousand reviews. When my clients close on a condo upstairs, this is where the celebration dinner happens.
Why locals love it: It is the rare suburban restaurant with true city energy, and the bridge view from the lounge never gets old.
So Kong Dong
So Kong Dong on Main Street does one thing at a level few restaurants anywhere match: soondubu jjigae, Korean soft tofu stew, delivered to the table in a stone pot still at a rolling boil. You pick your protein and spice level, crack an egg into the pot, and settle in. The menu is short because it does not need to be long.
The room is plain, the service is fast, and the line on a cold Saturday tells you everything. Lunch here runs less than a sandwich costs in Manhattan.
Why locals love it: It is the town’s default answer to a cold day, a hard week, or both.
Gammeeok
Gammeeok, at the west end of Main Street, is built around seolleongtang, a milky beef bone broth simmered until it turns silky, served with rice and the house kimchi that regulars talk about as much as the soup. The bossam, tender sliced pork with wraps and fixings, is the other pillar of the menu.
It is open 24 hours, which makes it a Fort Lee institution in the most literal sense: night shift workers, early flights, and post-celebration recovery meals all end up in the same room.
Why locals love it: No matter what hour life throws at you, Gammeeok is open and the broth is ready.
Dong Bang Grill
Dong Bang Grill on Palisade Avenue is the classic Korean barbecue experience: marinated galbi and bulgogi over tabletop grills, with a generous spread of banchan that keeps refilling as the meal goes on. It is a longstanding name in town, the kind of place where multigenerational families take over the big tables on Sunday evenings.
Go with a group, order more meat than seems reasonable, and let the staff manage the grill. They know exactly what they are doing.
Why locals love it: It turns dinner into an event without a bridge crossing or a Manhattan check.
Baggio’s Restaurant & Pizzeria
Baggio’s has held its corner of Main Street since 1997, turning out thin crust pizza, homemade pastas, and Italian classics from a snug room with a garden patio out back that feels imported from somewhere much farther away. Regulars will tell you the thin crust pie is the best in town, and I will not argue.
It is family run, fairly priced, and consistent in the way only a 25 year old neighborhood restaurant can be.
Why locals love it: The patio in summer with a thin crust pie feels like a vacation that costs twenty dollars.
Soup Dumpling Plus
Soup Dumpling Plus sits inside Fort Lee Plaza on Lemoine Avenue, and the name is a promise the kitchen keeps. The xiao long bao arrive in bamboo steamers with delicate wrappers and a rush of hot broth, and plenty of regulars will tell you they are the best soup dumplings in New Jersey.
The room is small, casual, and BYOB, and the menu runs well past dumplings: a hot and sour soup with a devoted following, scallion pancakes, and Shanghainese noodle and vegetable dishes at prices that make it easy to become a regular.
Why locals love it: World class soup dumplings hiding in a shopping plaza, at weeknight prices.
What Fort Lee’s Food Scene Says About the Town
A town’s restaurants tell you who actually lives there, and Fort Lee’s say the town is international, unpretentious, and awake at all hours. You can eat a boiling stone pot lunch for the price of a coffee run, a white tablecloth dinner under the bridge lights, or a Thumann’s hot dog at Hiram’s Roadstand, which has been frying them on Palisade Avenue since 1932. Very few zip codes in New Jersey cover that much ground, and none of the others sit at the foot of the George Washington Bridge.
Ready to Make Fort Lee Home?
I do not just sell homes in Fort Lee, I work here, a few blocks from the bridge, and I can tell you building by building where the value sits. If you want a skyline view at a condo price, or a single family street five minutes from Manhattan, let’s talk. And if Fort Lee’s pace feels like more than you want, I am happy to show you quieter options a short drive north like Tenafly.
Search Fort Lee Homes for Sale | Get a Free Home Valuation | Browse All Bergen County Towns
Tom Lee | NJNest
Phone: 848-565-1425
Email: tom@njnest.com
Website: njnest.com
Tom Lee is a licensed real estate agent with 2Win Realty, specializing in Bergen County residential real estate. With deep local expertise and a client-first approach, Tom helps buyers and sellers across all 70 Bergen County municipalities make confident real estate decisions.
