POWER OF THE PARKS
At first glance you might feel like this landscape work of art has been there forever - a serenely beautiful composition of lakes, ponds and streams, greenswards and groves of magnificent trees. But little do many know the extensive work that went into restoring the park and renewing it for what you see today. It is critical to understand that this culturally designed landscape where art and nature intersect was meticulously designed for decades, by a team of individuals who wanted to create a green escape for the people within this community. Every last detail from the types of trees that can be planted and where, soil to be used, where our commemorative benches can be placed, gardens planted, and how structures can be renovated, have been completed in a manner that compliments this historical landscape and its people.
Much of the damp, shallow valley of Branch Brook Park was too poor, or wet to be farmed or developed more productively. At the Southern end, where the ground seeps, springs fill the abandoned sandstone quarries that once supplied much of New York City's "brownstones." These areas became series of holding ponds for the Newark Aqueduct Company's circular reservoir, and later, would be shaped and molded into what is now, Branch Brook Park Lake.
To the North, photographs from Branch Brook Park back-in-the-day shows a hummocky morass known as Blue Jay Swamp. At the dawn of the 20th century, with the enlisted help of squadrons of immigrant laborers and acres of clay tile drains, this vague landscape was clearly defined and transformed into what we now recognize as Branch Brook Park. A major achievement in the Frederick Law Omstedian tradition, we are a grand landscape work of art.
For more information on our extensive history, please visit our Cultural Landscape Report.
Much of the damp, shallow valley of Branch Brook Park was too poor, or wet to be farmed or developed more productively. At the Southern end, where the ground seeps, springs fill the abandoned sandstone quarries that once supplied much of New York City's "brownstones." These areas became series of holding ponds for the Newark Aqueduct Company's circular reservoir, and later, would be shaped and molded into what is now, Branch Brook Park Lake.
To the North, photographs from Branch Brook Park back-in-the-day shows a hummocky morass known as Blue Jay Swamp. At the dawn of the 20th century, with the enlisted help of squadrons of immigrant laborers and acres of clay tile drains, this vague landscape was clearly defined and transformed into what we now recognize as Branch Brook Park. A major achievement in the Frederick Law Omstedian tradition, we are a grand landscape work of art.
For more information on our extensive history, please visit our Cultural Landscape Report.
