PARK AND CEMETERY 
223 
ParK-MaKing^ in Essex Co\int>', N. J 
The following interesting story of the successful 
and extensive park improvements that have been 
accomplished in Essex county, New Jersey, was 
told by Secretary Alonzo Church of the Essex 
County Park Commission, in a recent number ot 
Town and Country. 
Seven years ago the people of Essex County, 
New Jersey, began to realize that it was far behind 
its sister communities in the matter of park devel- 
opment. At that time there were within the county 
limits only twenty-five acres of usable park land, 
and this was comprised in the few squares in New- 
ark, and Orange, which the foresight of bygone 
generations had reserved. An appropriation, ag- 
collected into stagnant pools. There was no sew- 
erage system whatever. The great expense in- 
volved, and the lack of unity of plan among the 
several hundred individual owners, made it prac- 
tically impossible to develop properly by private 
enterprise so large a tract. Yet the needs of a 
rapid-growing community could not affiord to allow 
the property to lie wholly idle. The result was 
that a very poor class of tenements began to be 
erected. Drainage and sewage problems were 
neglected and drinking water was obtained from 
wells sunk in the sewage-soaked sand. 
It is easy to see what a menace to the public 
health such a district would have become. But 
COURTESY TOWN AND COUNTRY 
before. 
The Raw Material from which Forest Reservations are made. 
gregating about $4,000,000, was obtained, and since 
then tremendous progress has been made in the 
perfection of this splendid municipal improvement. 
It is one of the principles of park-making to take 
land which would be difficult to use for any other 
purpose and dangerous to the public health and 
to eliminate its unsightly menacing character by 
converting it into a pleasure ground. Carrying out 
this idea, the Commission acquired a tract of two 
hundred and eighty acres lying in the Branch 
Brook Valley. This land, although very near to 
thickly populated portions of Newark, was low and 
swampy. It formed a narrow strip about three 
miles long, between two high ridges, and there was 
no adequate provision for the surface water which 
Branch Brook Park has changed all this. The en- 
tire valley has been drained according to a well- 
considered plan, and, instead of stagnant pools, one 
sees a winding brook of pure and running water, 
which widens occasionally into pools and flows 
finally into a lake, whose area is about thirteen 
acres. This, in summer, is covered with pleasure 
crafts and in winter it is the resort of thousands of 
skaters. The surrounding land thus drained has 
readily adapted itself to park uses. The tenements 
have given place to broad lawns, fine walks, wind- 
ing drives, flowers and shrubs and trees, and among 
these, eA^ery evening and all day Sunday, at this 
season of the year, throngs of men, women and 
children promenade and wander about, getting a 
