With its pictureseque ducks on Verona Lake and children outside playing on their neatly manicured green lawns, our town is receiving recognition for “A Slice of Life Where the Price is Right” as New York Times writer Dave Caldwell put it in a recent article on the town.

Verona has been recognized before for its Best Practice Award for public schools, and was once ranked third for best public towns in NJ Monthly in 2008, but now the acclaimed New York Times has published a full-length article detailing Verona’s appeal as a place to live.

Nuzzled in between similar towns of Montclair, Glen Ridge, Cedar Grove and the Caldwells, and Roseland to the west, Verona offers a wide variety of housing for a family, bachelor, and anything in between with a reasonable price point, according to the Times.

Those of us who live here know the town definitely possesses a family atmosphere. Senior Lauren Smith says “I always think of how close our neighbors are. Not only do I babysit their kids but my parents hang out with them on the weekends. A lot of places you don’t even know who lives next door to you so I feel really lucky to be living in such a close community.”

Junior Michael King states, “It’s a nice town for families and kids. When kids are growing up they don’t appreciate it, but when they are adults they realize how lucky they were to be brought up here. I would raise my kids in Verona.”

Those Veronians who did not grow up here seem to appreciate it just as much. The Times article quotes resident Mary Myers Koelhofer, who moved her family of five to Verona from Detroit six years ago. “It’s so cute,” said. “The kids all walk to school. They know who the crossing guard is. It’s a very Norman Rockwell setting. The one thing we really like is that it has a real small-town feel.”

Sometimes it takes just looking around, but other times it takes a mention in the New York Times.