Crazy for Cranford: New Yorkers won over by this New Jersey town’s all-American charm.

Cranford is my hometown. I grew up there, graduated high school there, and have family still there. It’s a nice town and I didn’t realize it then, but a wonderful place to grow up as a kid. Close to NYC, close the jersey shore, close to Philly. Culture, Nature with a small town feel.

“I feel like I’m in the city again,’’ she said about Cranford, which has a town center and plenty of ethnic food. Dyer, who spends half as much as she did in the city on groceries, is also happy to save money in the suburbs. One of the sweetest surprises was the warm and welcoming neighbors. When the couple moved in, people in the community presented them with soup and flowers.On Super Bowl Sunday, they were invited to a neighborhood party — something less likely to happen in New York, where the couple felt that even their next door neighbors were strangers.