Kevin Wright, a former Bergen County Historical Society president from River Edge said Jay Gatsby — the protagonist who tries to win back the rich girl who broke his heart — is based on what happened to Fitzgerald when he was a student at Essex Street’s now-defunct The Newman School, in 1911, according to the report.
"It was certainly the Gilded Age place to be," Wright told northjersey.com. "If you think visually of the [county] courthouse they built in 1912 – this million-dollar marble palace – that courthouse was a symbol of that era in Hackensack."
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