Party Bus and Limo Service in Lyndhurst, NJ: Party Buses, Weddings and Game-Day Rides Near MetLife Stadium

By GEOFF CAPLAN

Lyndhurst packs a lot into just under five square miles. Roughly 22,500 people, two NJ Transit stations, Route 17 splitting the town in half, and the Meadowlands sitting right at its eastern edge. Newark is seven miles south. MetLife Stadium and the Meadowlands Sports Complex sit about four miles east. Manhattan is a fifteen-mile shot down the turnpike. Lyndhurst is the kind of town where a wedding party might be photographed against a marsh backdrop one hour and dropped in Times Square the next.

That density and that location cut both ways for anyone planning transportation. Parking is tight, Route 17 backs up on event nights, and getting a full bridal party or a tailgate crew from a Lyndhurst address to a Manhattan venue takes a driver who has already worked out which bridge and which exit ramp to avoid at 6 p.m. on a Saturday. Action Limos has handled exactly that kind of routing for New Jersey families since 1979, nearly 50 years now.

From Union Township to Lord Lyndhurst

The town did not start out with its current name. It began as Union Township, incorporated February 19, 1852, carved from a portion of old Harrison Township. Over the following decades, Union Township kept losing ground. Rutherford split off in 1881. Boiling Springs Township, later East Rutherford, broke away in 1889. North Arlington followed in 1896. By the early 1900s, what remained was a fraction of the original footprint, and residents decided the name Union Township no longer fit a town that kept shrinking.

A referendum settled it. On May 8, 1917, voters approved changing the name, and the change became official one week later, on May 15, 1917. They picked Lyndhurst, after John Singleton Copley, better known by his title, Lord Lyndhurst, a 19th-century British politician who happened to have connections to the area’s early landholders. It is an odd namesake for a New Jersey suburb, but the name stuck, and it has outlasted every reason anyone originally had for choosing it. More on the township’s government and services sits at lyndhurstnj.org.

The Night Half a Million Shells Went Off

Lyndhurst’s most dramatic chapter arrived before the name change even took effect. On January 11, 1917, a fire broke out at the Canadian Car and Foundry Company plant, which was manufacturing munitions for the United Kingdom and the Russian Empire during World War I. A spill of flammable liquid ignited in a building where artillery shells were being cleaned, and over the next four hours roughly 500,000 three-inch explosive shells detonated. Witnesses at the time called it a spectacle rivaling the infamous Black Tom explosion across the river in Jersey City the year before.

What saved the plant’s workers was a switchboard operator named Tessie McNamara. Rather than run, she stayed at her post, calling every building on the property and shouting a single warning into the line: “Get out or go up!” She is credited with saving 1,400 lives that night. It remains one of the more remarkable, and least remembered, stories to come out of industrial New Jersey during the war years, and it happened on the very ground where Lyndhurst residents now shop and commute.

DeKorte Park and the Meadowlands’ Second Act

Lyndhurst sits at the administrative heart of the Meadowlands recovery story. Richard W. DeKorte Park, headquarters of the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority, occupies land that was once slated for landfill. Today the park runs a 3.5-mile trail system through restored wetlands, a boardwalk called the Marsh Discovery Trail, and bird blinds that make it one of the better birding spots in the entire Northeast. Jill’s Garden, a butterfly garden built in memory of a young Lyndhurst-connected TWA Flight 800 victim, anchors the park’s Environmental Center and draws over a thousand visitors each July for its annual Butterfly Day. Details on the park and its trails are posted through the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority.

Nearly 50 Years, and the Only Indoor Showroom in New Jersey

Action Limos opened in 1979 and stands as the oldest limousine service in New Jersey. The company was founded by John Garrabrant, who still owns it today. Fifty years in this trade is rare. Most operators come and go inside a decade. Longevity like this means decades of driver training, fleet maintenance and a customer base that now spans generations of the same families.

Then there is the showroom. Action Limos runs the only indoor limousine showroom in New Jersey, at 261 Monroe Ave. in Kenilworth, a straightforward drive of about 25 to 30 minutes from Lyndhurst. Customers walk the floor, sit in the actual vehicles, check headroom, test the sound system and compare a vintage stretch against a full-size party bus, all before signing anything. For a bride juggling a hundred other decisions, that hour in the showroom tends to be the easiest one of the whole process.

What Lyndhurst Actually Books

MetLife Stadium and Meadowlands Events

Four miles is close enough that a lot of Lyndhurst bookings are game-day and concert traffic. Giants and Jets games, major concerts, WWE and UFC events. Stadium parking lots turn into a slog after the final whistle, and rideshare pricing tends to spike right when 80,000 people try to leave at once. A party bus sidesteps all of it, with one pickup point and one drop-off, tailgate space included if the group wants to start the day early in the lot.

Weddings

Lyndhurst’s walkable business district and its mix of banquet halls make it a common staging point for weddings that stretch across Bergen and Hudson counties. Action Limos has specialized in wedding transportation for decades, with vintage and antique cars for the couple and larger coaches to move the rest of the party between ceremony, photos and reception.

Nights Into Manhattan

Fifteen miles and a straight shot down the turnpike puts Manhattan closer to Lyndhurst than it is to most New Jersey suburbs. Broadway shows, bachelor and bachelorette parties, birthday nights out, concerts at Madison Square Garden. A party bus turns the tunnel crossing into part of the celebration rather than the least fun part of the night.

Airport Transfers

EWR Newark Liberty is the closest option, roughly 15 to 20 minutes south depending on traffic. LGA LaGuardia and (JFK) JFK are both reachable within 30 to 45 minutes, which makes Lyndhurst one of the more airport-convenient towns Action Limos serves. A scheduled sedan removes the guesswork around bridge and tunnel traffic on an early flight.

Bergen Community College and Local Milestones

With a Bergen Community College campus in town, Lyndhurst sees a steady run of graduation bookings alongside its share of proms, sweet sixteens and confirmation parties. Local families tend to book these well ahead of the spring rush.

Frequently Asked Questions