Service Area
Cleaning on the Gold Coast.
The Hudson River waterfront corridor from Fort Lee down through Jersey City. Where our first truck went to work in 1979, and where we still work every week.
The Gold Coast is what people call the strip of New Jersey that faces Manhattan across the Hudson. It is not one town. It is a corridor of eleven towns strung along the river, from Fort Lee at the George Washington Bridge down through the Palisades to Jersey City. Zimick Brothers Cleaning Service was founded in Edgewater in 1979, in the middle of that corridor, and we have been on the road here every week since.
Where we started
In 1979 the waterfront looked nothing like it does today. Most of the shoreline was still what it had always been: factories, warehouses, rail yards, and shipping piers left over from the port era. The redevelopment that turned this corridor into what real estate agents would later brand the "Gold Coast" was still a few years away. The label itself was not coined until the 1980s, when brokers and developers started using it after they recognized the investment potential of the riverfront.
Our first truck ran out of Edgewater. In those years the work was steady but different: small commercial buildings, restaurants, offices for the businesses that were still hanging on along River Road, and the modest condo conversions that were just starting to appear. The town was quieter, the traffic was lighter, and most of the buildings we cleaned were low-rise.
How the corridor grew
The 1980s were the turning point. Palisades Amusement Park had closed in 1971 and the land was replaced with high-rise apartments. NY Waterway restored cross-Hudson ferry service in 1986. Hoboken and downtown Jersey City began the gentrification wave that has not really stopped. Through the 1990s the pace picked up, and the redevelopment moved north up the river through Weehawken, West New York, and Edgewater on the Bergen side. Corporate offices, retail centers, and residential towers replaced brownfields that had held factories, warehouses, and rail yards for a century.
The Hudson-Bergen Light Rail opened up more of the corridor to development. The Hudson River Waterfront Walkway now runs continuously along most of the shoreline. What was industrial land in the 1970s is now some of the densest, most valuable residential and commercial real estate in New Jersey.
We grew with it
The buildings changed, and the work changed with them. What started as one truck cleaning small commercial spaces in Edgewater is now a full crew running post-construction cleanups on new mid-rise and high-rise towers, common-area janitorial for condo and rental buildings up and down River Road and along the Hoboken and Jersey City waterfronts, retail cleaning at the shopping centers built on the old industrial parcels, corporate lobby work in office towers, and heavy-duty restaurant and food-service deep cleans for the restaurants that opened along the walkway.
We did not pick the Gold Coast because it was fashionable. We were already here. The corridor grew up around us, and we adapted to the work it produced. Forty-seven years later, most of our commercial route still runs along the same eight or nine miles of the Hudson we started on.
The eleven towns of the corridor
The Gold Coast is a nickname for the New Jersey side of the Hudson River waterfront. The eleven municipalities that make up the corridor, north to south:
Towns shown as links have their own dedicated page with local response time and pricing notes. The others are covered on the same route.
What we spend most of our time on along the corridor
Common-area janitorial for high-rise and mid-rise condo and rental buildings is the largest category. Post-construction cleanups for new towers and gut renovations are steady work, especially at the Edgewater and Weehawken waterfronts where new buildings still come online each year. Retail janitorial at the waterfront shopping centers, corporate lobby work in the office towers, and heavy-duty restaurant deep cleans round out the schedule.
Route and scheduling notes
The Englewood office is minutes from the northern end of the corridor. Response time to Fort Lee and Edgewater is under twenty minutes off-peak. Hoboken and Jersey City add time depending on bridge and tunnel traffic. Common-area maintenance polish and lobby work is scheduled in the evening, after tenants and shoppers are out, so the finish sets clean and the space is ready before the morning rush. Post-construction cleanups are scheduled around the general contractor's punch list.
Dedicated town pages along the corridor
Local detail, town by town.
Edgewater
River Road mid-rise common-area janitorial, condo unit turnovers, and heavy-duty deep cleans for the waterfront restaurants lead the schedule.
Fort Lee
High-rise and mid-rise common-area janitorial, condo unit turnovers, and post-construction cleaning after tower renovations lead the schedule.
Hoboken
Brownstone unit turnovers, condo mid-rise common areas, and retail janitorial along Washington Street lead the schedule.
Jersey City
Downtown high-rise common-area janitorial and corporate lobby work along the waterfront lead the schedule.
Building on the Gold Coast? Ask.
One call. We come look. You get a clear estimate, in writing, before we start.