The evolution of the street corner

As the Village of Greenwood Lake prepares for its 100th anniversary celebration in 2024, it’s often helpful to see how a street corner has changed over the years, like the site of a building that had a deep history in the automotive industry; Avenue and Church Street.

At the time, the country had barely recovered from the Great Depression, and New York and New Jersey built an increasing number of paved surfaces during the “Highway Era” until about 1947, which, according to the New Jersey Historic Road Study, provided; the following economic benefits to residents:

· A reduction in local taxes for road construction and maintenance, as government funding was now available for road construction.

· Reduced cost of living due to reduced cost of shipping goods and products.

· Increased property value due to ease of travel between extreme destinations and access to an improved road system.

· Increased income for farmers due to the ability to transport farm produce over longer distances at a lower cost and in a shorter period of time.

· Growth in rail business due to greater availability of depots.

Paved roads ran west from the Hudson River to Greenwood Lake and north and east from nearby New Jersey counties. In the 20th century, road improvements combined with the availability of automobiles gave Americans new transportation options. Unbound by fixed train timetables, travelers could follow any passable route as far as it would take them. And the auto repair business began to multiply along with the gas stations.

Central Garage began operating in the 1940s, according to Lynn Glazar. “It’s the station my dad owned in the late 40s early fifties. It had no elevator. it had a pit that you dropped into and drove over to work on it.” It later became one of the Standard Oil gas stations, an Esso station. According to Glazar, “Corky started his taxi station there.” Later, John Fraunberger took over the building, at 58 Windermere Ave., in 1992 and renamed it Carriage Auto Repair, where it lasted several decades as one of Lake Greenwood’s most popular auto repair facilities.

In 2022, the building was purchased by Dave and Yolanda Kozuha, owners of Greenwood Lake Roasters. Dave is an expert in grading and grading Arabica coffee beans, one of the finest coffee beans grown in the world’s major coffee regions, which include Central and South America, Africa, and South and Southeast Asia. He is a certified organoleptic coffee judge and consults regularly with dozens of farmers who grow coffee beans in the equatorial region between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn. He alone is familiar with hundreds of varieties of beans from farms in Ethiopia (the original home of the coffee bean) and knows a thing or two about coffee. He commissioned former Lake Greenwood artist Chris Van Vuuren to put a new look on the building’s exterior, although the original garage door openings are still visible.

If you would like to stay in touch with preparations for Greenwood Lake’s extraordinary centennial celebration in 2024, visit https://www.facebook.com/gwlcentennialor or https://gwlcentennial.org/