Area Guide / Northern New Jersey / Essex / Maplewood

With approximately 24,000 residents, Maplewood is located 22 miles from New York City, and covers an area of four square miles in Essex County, New Jersey. Maplewood offers an assortment of activities, including numerous outdoor recreational activities, and is well known as a diverse and family friendly town. 

Named “one of the best places to live” by Money Magazine in 2002, Maplewood is an excellent town with a lot to offer its residents. A district called “the village” is located in-town and holds its own movie theatre, several mid to upscale restaurants, liquor stores, cafes and a bookstore all within walking distance to each other. Maplewood also offers several well-maintained parks like DeHart Park and Memorial Park, where a lot of residents spend summer days and evenings taking in concerts, festivals or simply enjoying the towns beautiful foliage in the fall.
 
Maplewood is known for its desirable scenery and has been used as a background for such films as Stepmom, One True Thing, and The Reader. Maplewood was also the home of Harriet Stratemeyer Adams, one of the writers of the Nancy Drew series and is also the birthplace of a popular modern sport, Ultimate Frisbee, which was invented here in 1968. 

Maplewood boasts an excellent public school system. There are six district elementary schools serving students in kindergarten through fifth grades. Maplewood Middle School and South Orange Middle School serve students in grades six through eight, and Columbia High School serves students in grades nine through twelve. 

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