About Us > History of Branch Brook Park

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Branch Brook Park is distinguished by being the first county park to be opened for public use in the United States. It has been placed on both the New Jersey (1980) and National (1981) Registers of Historic Places. Located in the City of Newark and bordered at the northern end by U.S. Route 280, the park crosses Bloomfield Avenue, Park Avenue, and Heller Parkway, terminating near the Newark/Belleville line.

The park is nearly 4 miles long and averages 1/4 mile in width. At 359.72 acres, it is the largest developed park in the County. It is featured by a combination of open meadowland and small patches of woodland on gently rolling terrain. Named for a branch brook that flowed through the valley into the Passaic River, the park was originally intended to remain in its natural state, but today is used largely for athletics activities.

More than 2,000 cherry trees that blossom during April are greater both in variety and number than the famed Washington, D.C., display--the result of a 1927 gift from the Bamberger and Mrs. Felix Fuld family. At its height the Cherry Blossom Festival attracts over 10,000 people a day. In 1895, the same year the New Jersey State Legislature authorized creation of the Essex County Park Commission, a former Civil War Army training ground was dedicated to "park use." A large part of the land was a dismal marsh known as Old Blue Jay Swamp. To add to the dismal air of the swamp, bleak, unhealthy tenements crowded in on parts of the area. The swamp water was used for both drinking and sewage disposal. In sharp contrast, the southern portion of the proposed park contained a circular reservoir basin that supplied clean, fresh water to a "private" association of Newark citizens.

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