Sign Language
“Go home kimchi” was scrawled on the newspaper wrapped around a rock that shattered Andy Nam’s store window, his first neighborhood greeting when he opened Grand Furniture on Broad Ave., Palisades Park in 1989. After moving from New York City for Closter, New Jersey’s better neighborhoods and schools for his two kids, he thought his new largely white neighborhood could be a new market for his business. “You see how my sign doesn’t have any Korean on it? It’s just Grand Furniture. I knew if they saw any Korean, they wouldn’t come in.”
But after frequent showers of raw eggs thrown at his store and few other Korean ones in the area, Nam decided to do something about it. He gathered a few of his fellow business owners, marched down the block to Borough Hall, and requested a meeting with then mayor Bill Maresca. He agreed, and the group took him to a Korean restaurant on Bergen Blvd.
“I told him if he didn’t do anything about this, I was going to tell the media that it was discrimination,” recalls Nam. “He said give me one week. One week later I got a call from this young Italian man who said it wasn’t going to happen anymore. And it didn’t.”
Today, Korean characters flash on the touch screens of brand new parking meters lining Broad Ave., now the heart of New Jersey’s Koreatown. Instead of Starbucks or Dunkin’ Donuts, there are Caffe Bene and Paris Baguette, huge chain businesses from South Korea. Instead of MAC or Sephora, Nature Republic and The Face Shop. Not a single American fast food chain is in sight.
That’s why it’s hard to imagine that just three decades ago, seeing a Korean store on Broad Ave. would have been rarer than seeing an American one today.
Broad Ave.’s previous cultural owners were predominantly Italian, with a few Germans and Yugoslavians. Albrizio’s car dealership once sat where Yoochun, a famous cold noodle house, is today. So Moon Nan Jip, one of the oldest and most popular Korean restaurants on the street, was Introna’s Delicatessen and Meat Market, which was just as well known during its heyday. But even on its busiest days, Broad Ave. was never as bustling as it is today.
“Commerce was not in the best conditions,” remembers George Maksoud, owner of Mr. Maksoud’s Handbags and Shoe, one of the very few non-Korean businesses on Broad Ave. “There were a lot of empty stores. But when the Koreans started coming in, it was difficult to do business. It was extremely uncomfortable. No one trusted each other. The Koreans thought they were always being taken advantage of,” says Maksoud.
In the mid-1980s, Korean corporations like Samsung, Hyundai, and LG were moving their office buildings to the less crowded New Jersey area, only a bridge away from New York City. This only made Bergen County more attractive to the Korean immigrants who heard by word of mouth that New Jersey had better neighborhoods and schools. Korean business owners who were already business savvy—like Andy Nam—were looking to grow into new markets. By the mid-1990s, most Italians in the area had retired or moved away, and Palisades Park was well on its way in becoming the municipality with the highest density of Korean-Americans in the country.
But George Maksoud wanted to continue the family business that had been on Broad Ave. since 1959. “I needed the Koreans,” he says matter-of-factly. “It was hard in the beginning. I couldn’t get anyone to come in. But you know what the solution was? Just the sign 구두수선,” which is shoe repair in Korean. He points through his small shop window to the simple and weathered white plastic sign. “That’s it. So simple, right?”
