Oak Tree Road, Edison

History

Oak Tree Road, straddling Edison and neighboring Iselin, was previously a modest Italian and German commercial strip. Its transformation began as South Asian professionals — many arriving on the strength of the same 1965 immigration reforms that reshaped Jackson Heights — settled in Middlesex County for its suburban housing stock and strong school systems, then commuting distance to New York City jobs.

The corridor's retail identity solidified through the 1990s and early 2000s, as the IT boom brought a fresh wave of Indian and Pakistani families to central New Jersey and Indian-owned businesses arrived on Oak Tree Road en masse. What had been a quiet suburban road became one of the largest concentrations of South Asian retail on the East Coast.

Today Oak Tree Road is home to several hundred South Asian businesses — groceries, jewelers, sari and fabric shops, and well over a hundred restaurants — spread along a corridor that is easier to drive than to walk end to end. The area now anchors the annual New Jersey India Day Parade each August, marching from Edison into Iselin's India Square.

Known for

• Jewelry stores clustered along Oak Tree Road specializing in Indian gold and bridal sets
• Iselin's India Square, the eastern anchor of the corridor and parade route endpoint
• A dense concentration of regional Indian restaurants, from South Indian dosa houses to Punjabi dhaba-style kitchens
• Sari and fabric shops carrying wedding and festival wear
• Large-format Indian and Pakistani grocery stores serving the wider central Jersey diaspora
• The annual New Jersey India Day Parade each August, one of the largest Indian-American parades on the East Coast

Getting there

Best reached by car — Oak Tree Road runs between Route 27 and Route 1 in Edison/Iselin; NJ Transit's Northeast Corridor line to Metropark or Edison station puts you within a short rideshare or bus connection of the strip.

Best times to visit

The corridor is at its liveliest during the New Jersey India Day Parade in August and in the run-up to diwali, when storefronts stay open late for holiday shopping.