Montclair Ward 4 is the part of town still waiting on two things: a supermarket at Lackawanna Plaza, empty of one since the Pathmark closed in 2015, and a decision on the 1901 firehouse on Harrison Avenue that has sat dark since 2023. It is also where most of the town’s public pools, a county park built around a community center and a growing stretch of Orange Road restaurants sit, all along the Glen Ridge line. This guide covers who represents the ward, where its lines actually fall and what’s inside them.
Montclair Ward 4 at a Glance
| Covers | The South End, the Bay Street station area, Lackawanna Plaza and the east end of Bloomfield Avenue |
| ZIP code | 07042 |
| Council rep | Aminah Toler, Fourth Ward Councilor since 2024 |
| Schools | Nishuane School, Charles H. Bullock School, Glenfield Middle School |
| Library | None inside the ward; the Main Library on South Fullerton Avenue sits just over the line in Ward 3 |
| Fire stations | Fire Headquarters, 1 Pine St.; Station 3, 151 Harrison Ave. (closed since July 2023) |
| Train station | Bay Street (Montclair-Boonton Line) |
| Commercial hubs | Orange Road in the South End; Bloomfield Avenue from Lackawanna Plaza to Glen Ridge |
| Big annual event | Montclair African-American Heritage Parade and Festival, Nishuane Park, first Saturday in June |
Not sure which ward your address falls in? Use the township’s interactive ward viewer for a direct answer.
Where Does Montclair’s Fourth Ward Start and End?
Ward 4 covers the South End and the eastern slice of downtown. Glen Ridge runs along its entire eastern edge, with Ward 2 to the north and Ward 3 to the west. It stretches from Canterbury Park at the southern town line up to the edge of the Walnut Street business district.
The line with Ward 2 to the north is Chestnut Street, running from the Glen Ridge border up to Essex Park. The odd-numbered side of Chestnut, including Essex Park and its pool, is Ward 4; neighbors across the street are in Ward 2. Grove Street, Christopher Street and Montclair Avenue all switch wards at Chestnut. Past Essex Park, the line turns along the train tracks, which is why the Walnut Street station, which feels like it should anchor this part of town, sits just across the line in Ward 2. So does most of the restaurant row north of the tracks.
The western edge with Ward 3 is a staircase rather than a straight line. It comes down Greenwood Avenue to Lackawanna Plaza and crosses Bloomfield Avenue a few blocks west of the plaza. From there it steps south along Gates Avenue, Elm Street and finally Harrison Avenue to the town line. On several of those streets the ward line runs down the middle of the road, so neighbors across the street from each other can vote in different wards.
In practice, that leaves a few landmarks people assume are Ward 4 on the other side of the line: the Walnut Street station, the Main Library, Porter Park at the fork of Orange Road and Harrison Avenue, and the busy stretch of Bloomfield Avenue west of Gates Avenue.
Who Represents Ward 4 on the Township Council?
Aminah Toler won the Fourth Ward seat in the 2024 municipal election, a three-way race against Zina Floyd and Patricia Hurt. She ran on the Montclair Good Government Team slate with Bob Russo. Montclair’s municipal elections are nonpartisan, so candidates run without party labels.
Toler came to the job with a long local resume and no prior elected office. Born in Newark, she moved as a young girl to Frog Hollow and went through Montclair’s public schools. She became the kind of neighbor people call when they need something; around town, the nickname is “The Connector.” She helped found Montclair Mutual Aid during the pandemic, chairs the board of the Friends of the James Howe House and has served as vice chair of the township’s Landlord-Tenant Advisory Committee.
She holds her ward meetings at Fire Headquarters on Pine Street, and her clearest fight in office has been over the firehouse on Harrison Avenue (more on that below). She also follows a well-known predecessor. Mayor Renee Baskerville held the Fourth Ward seat before her and, in that role, spent years pushing to bring a supermarket back to Lackawanna Plaza.
Schools in Ward 4
Three public schools sit inside Ward 4’s lines. Nishuane School, at 32 Cedar Ave. across from Nishuane Park, serves pre-K through second grade. Charles H. Bullock School, at 55 Washington St., runs kindergarten through fifth grade. Glenfield Middle School, at 25 Maple Ave. beside Glenfield Park, covers grades six through eight and doubles as a polling place on Election Day.
Don’t read that as a feeder pattern, though. Montclair runs a districtwide magnet system with no zoned neighborhood schools, so an address on Cedar Avenue doesn’t guarantee a seat at Nishuane. (The Pod’s full explainer: Montclair’s Magnet Schools at a Crossroads.)
Public Safety: Two Firehouses, One of Them Dark
Two of Montclair’s three firehouses sit in Ward 4, and one of them has been empty for more than three years.
Fire Headquarters, at 1 Pine St., is the department’s main station, a block from the Bay Street train station. Fire Station 3, at 151 Harrison Ave. on the corner of Cedar Avenue, is the township’s oldest firehouse, built in 1901. It has been closed for repairs since July 2023, and the state budget for fiscal year 2026 set aside $200,000 toward fixing it.
Whether it ever reopens as a firehouse is now a council fight. This month, a measure to extend a $24,950 architecture contract for the building failed on a 3-3 vote, with Second Ward Councilor Eileen Birmingham abstaining. Toler voted yes, along with Councilor-at-Large Bill Harrison and Mayor Baskerville, and argued that Station 3 should stay a fire station. Deputy Mayor Susan Shin Andersen, First Ward Councilor Erik D’Amato and Third Ward Councilor Rahum Williams voted no.
Until the council finds a fourth vote, the 1901 building on Harrison Avenue stays dark.
Parks and Green Spaces
Ward 4 holds a disproportionate share of the town’s public recreation. It has two of Montclair’s three municipal pools, two of its three township tennis sites and the county park that the Pod’s guide to Montclair’s 23 parks calls the focal point of the Fourth Ward.
That park is Glenfield Park, 20 acres on Maple Avenue at Bloomfield Avenue, designed by the Olmsted Brothers and run by Essex County. Its centerpiece, the Wally Choice Community Center, reopened in 2023 as a 10,000-square-foot building with a computer room, a kitchen and a Montclair police substation. The name honors a Montclair native who played for the Harlem Globetrotters, came home to open a pharmacy on Bloomfield Avenue and helped found Montclair Grass Roots. Behind the fields, a strip of woods along Toney’s Brook is known simply as the Glen. The tennis courts are county courts, so no township permit is needed.
Nishuane Park, 17.66 acres on Cedar Avenue between High Street and Harrison Avenue, is the ward’s other anchor. It has a pool, six tennis courts, ball fields, an outdoor stage and a wooded corner called Carey’s Woods. It is also the finish line for the Montclair African-American Heritage Parade and Festival every June. The park is home to a monument to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King that Toler has said her father erected with a group called the Peaceful Warriors.
The playground is fenced off for now. The township started a full rebuild after the pool closed for the season Aug. 16, with work expected to last about three months.
The rest of the ward’s green space is smaller but busy:
- Essex Park: 9.9 acres at Chestnut Street and Essex Avenue, with Essex Pool, the Clary Anderson Arena and Montclair High School teams on the fields most afternoons.
- Canterbury Park: 8.22 acres at Canterbury and Planchet drives, the south side’s go-to sledding hill. A $2.99 million state Green Acres grant application for a rebuild is pending, with pickleball dropped from the plan after neighbors objected.
- Kaveney Field: 2.2 acres at Grove and Walnut streets, lit for evening baseball and softball.
Pools and Tennis: What Changed in 2026
Nishuane and Essex are both inside Ward 4’s lines, and two changes this year will likely carry into next summer. All three township pools went cashless. Nonresidents can now buy day passes, after a state Green Acres compliance letter found the town’s resident-only policy violated the terms of the funding behind the pools.
Tennis at Nishuane and Canterbury requires a free township permit through the Pools & Tennis Courts page. Glenfield’s county courts do not.
Lackawanna Plaza and the Decade-Long Wait for a Supermarket
No single property says more about Ward 4 than the old Lackawanna Terminal at Bloomfield Avenue and Grove Street.
The 1913 rail terminal stopped serving trains when Bay Street station opened in 1981 and spent the next three decades as a shopping center. Its anchor, a Pathmark, closed in November 2015, leaving many Fourth Ward residents without a grocery store they could walk to. What followed was a decade of developers, lawsuits and revision after revision. BDP Holdings, led by Montclair resident David Placek, bought the 7.6-acre site in 2021.
The supermarket still isn’t there. In February, the council introduced a 30-year tax abatement for a redevelopment that calls for one, along with 300 housing units and offices.
In the meantime, the terminal building has found a second life as Lackawanna Station, an indoor marketplace and event hall. This year it hosted Montclair Pride, National Night Out and an indoor flea market. Inside, Ironbound Farm Market runs what founder Charles Rosen calls a “farm stop,” selling meat, produce and prepared food from small farms on consignment. It isn’t a supermarket, but for now it is the closest thing to fresh groceries the plaza has had since 2015.
One more ward quirk: 1 Lackawanna Plaza, the terminal itself, is in Ward 4, but some addresses across the plaza’s own street fall in Ward 3. The ward line runs right through the project.
Restaurants and Cafes
Start on Orange Road, in the heart of the South End.
Sankofa Cafe, at 319 Orange Road, is the block’s living room. Owner Jessica Troupe, a former clinical social worker who raised her four children around the corner, soft-opened it in July 2024, the same weekend as the heritage parade. The name comes from a Ghanaian symbol tied to learning from the past. The sourcing stays close to home: pastries from Le French Dad on Church Street and crepes from Crepes Chantal, a few doors down Orange Road. It is one of the Pod’s picks in its guide to the best coffee shops in Montclair.
Up the street, Pig & Butter opened at 401 Orange Road in August after moving its all-day brunch from Avenue B in Manhattan’s East Village. Chef Sherry Grimes is no stranger to Montclair; she previously ran the kitchen at Anderson’s 1949 on Glenridge Avenue. She told Montclair Local the opening “feels good to be back home,” and Mayor Baskerville cut the ribbon.
Over on Bloomfield Avenue, Greek Taverna at 292 Bloomfield Ave. has been serving Greek comfort food since 2008, and it is BYOB. Owner Peter Hajiyerou once explained the restaurant’s origin story simply: he was tired of driving to Astoria for the food he grew up on.
Inside Lackawanna Station, the food is quick and casual. Yellow Rose Bakery, a fully vegan and kosher bakery from Maplewood, added a second location there this summer, alongside a burger and dollar-donut counter and a lot of food trucks. The space Pineapple Express Barbecue left in January, when chef and owner Damon Wise closed after five years, has a new tenant on the way.
And if you’re wondering why Ray’s Luncheonette, Egan & Sons and Le Salbuen aren’t on this list: they’re just over the line. Walnut Street north of the train tracks belongs to Wards 2 and 3.
Bars, BYOB and the Tavern Coming to Lackawanna
Montclair has roughly 13 full liquor licenses for some 300 restaurants, which is why so much of the town, Ward 4 included, runs BYOB. (Full breakdown: Montclair Liquor Licenses Explained.)
For five years, the ward’s best-known place to drink was Pineapple Express, whose beer garden and cocktail bar filled the old Lackawanna terminal until it closed in January. A replacement, Industry Tavern, has signed a lease for the space, according to Placek. It describes itself on Instagram as a “classic, warmly nostalgic tavern” inside the 1913 building, but its owners, menu and opening date haven’t been announced. Down the hall, Boozie’s Wine Shoppe sells local craft beer and wine at 1 Lackawanna Plaza, with a few bar counters around the station where you can drink there.
If you’re picking up a bottle for dinner, the ward’s two oldest liquor stores both go back about a century.
South End Liquors, at 310 Orange Road, traces its roots to around 1926, when it opened as South End Delicatessen across the street at 311. It picked up its current name in 1945 under new owners. Leo Bromley, one of its longest-serving owners, also ran the New Jersey Liquors Association. The shop sold a $140,000 lottery ticket in 2020.
Grove Liquor Shop, at 131 Grove St., started in 1939 as the liquor department of Grove Food Shop. It has changed hands several times since and sits on a block of old-timers, next to Grove Pharmacy and Grove Deli, which has been family-run since 1974.
Closer to the train, Caggiano’s Wine & Liquor on Glenridge Avenue is a block from Bay Street station.
Getting Around: Bay Street and the Bus Lines
Ward 4 has one train station. Bay Street station sits on Pine Street between Bloomfield and Glenridge avenues. It opened in 1981 to replace the Lackawanna Terminal and was rebuilt for the 2002 Montclair Connection that brought direct Midtown service. On weekends, Montclair-Boonton Line trains go no farther than Bay Street. Riders headed to New York change at Newark Broad Street. The commuter parking deck is at 21 Pine St.
Walnut Street station is a short walk north, just over the line in Ward 2. On the bus side, NJ Transit’s 11 and 29 lines run along Bloomfield Avenue toward Newark.
What Is the South End Known For?
For Toler, the answer begins with history. She has spoken about the deep roots of the African American community in the Fourth Ward. That history shows up on the calendar, from the June heritage parade that ends in Nishuane Park to the King monument a few steps away.
It is also a part of town that is still filling in. Orange Road has added a cafe and a chef-run brunch spot in two years. Around the train, the 163-unit Montclair Residences at Bay Street Station stands at 11 Pine St., and the Lackawanna plan would add roughly 300 more apartments a few blocks away.
How Much Does It Cost to Live in Ward 4?
Nothing in Montclair is cheap, but some brokers point to the south side as one of the town’s more attainable entry points. The Prodigy Team, a local brokerage, singles out the Fourth Ward and Frog Hollow, with the caveat that “affordable” in Montclair is always relative. (For more, check out the Pod’s coverage of Montclair’s real estate market.)
Find Your Ward
Ward 4’s lines cut through places people think of as one neighborhood, from the middle of Lackawanna Plaza to the foot of Walnut Street. Whether you’re house hunting, figuring out which councilor to email about Station 3 or just settling a bet with a neighbor, the township’s interactive ward viewer takes an address and gives an answer in seconds.
Image credit: Jim Henderson / Wikimedia Commons
