461 
PARK AND CEMETERY 
ParK Development in £ssex Cotinty, N. J. 
The recent act passed by the New Jersey Legisla- 
ture, and approved by the people at the last election, 
providing for the raising of an additional $1,000,000 
for the improving of the magnificent park system of 
Essex County, N. J., marks the practical completion 
of one of the largest undertakings in scientific park 
BRANCH BROOK PARK, SOUTHERN DIVISION. SITE OF SUB- 
WAY BEFORE IMPROVEMENT. 
making ever accomplished in this country. In 1894 
a preliminary commission, composed of Messrs. 
Cyrus Peck, Frederick W. Kelsey, Stephen J. Meeker, 
George W. Bramhall, and Edward W. Jackson, was 
appointed to elaborate a system of county parks, and 
in 1895 an appropriation of about $4,000,000 was se- 
cured for the work. There were then only 25 acres 
of park land in Essex County. The system now em- 
braces 3,548.36 acres of parks and reservations, and 
the total expenditure for land and improvements 
amounts to $3,859,465.76. The plans for development 
were prepared by Olmsted Brothers, and the views 
shown here of the before and after aspects of some of 
the tracts will give a faint idea of the transformation 
that has been effected. 
The different tracts included in the system and their 
areas are as follows : Branch Brook Park, 277 acres ; 
Eastside Park, 12.5 ; Westside, 23 ; Orange, 47.5 ; Wat- 
sessing, 10; Weequahic Reservation, 265.08; Eagle 
Rock Reservation, 413.28; South Mountain Reserva- 
tion, 2,500. 
Branch Brook, the largest of the parks (a plan and 
views of which are shown here), is a long, narrow 
strip of land near the center of the city of Newark. It 
is 11,115 feet long and varies in width from 685 to 
1,755 feet. The land has cost $680,115.36, the build- 
ings, $538,580, and the park improvements, $938,- 
573.93. There are 4.25 miles of roads and ii miles of 
paths. A large part of the southern division, about 80 
acres, belonged to the City of Newark, which trans- 
ferred its care to the commission for park purposes in 
1895. 
The site was in a valley, where a lake had been arti- 
ficially formed, in low, swampy land, for water works 
purposes. With this as a nucleus, the park was ex- 
tended southward to Sussex avenue on one side of the 
valley to afford a safer and handsomer approach over 
the railroad, and on the other side to Eighth avenue 
to do away with a row of unsightly houses and rear 
premises which can be seen in one of our illustrations. 
Olmsted Brothers, in their report, accompanying the 
sixth annual report of the Commission, speak as fol- 
lows concerning some of the problems of design and 
construction in this park ; 
“From the point of view of design, Branch Brook Park is 
broken by crossing streets into six sections, of which four 
are grouped as Southern Division, another is called Middle 
Division and the remaining one Northern Division. It is 
made a unit in design by the fact that it occupies a continu- 
ous valley, and also by the continuity of the waterway, the 
drives and the walks. The lawns and plantations also have 
throughout such a consistent treatment, that the thought 
would scarcely occur to anyone in passing from one division 
to another that there was more than one park. Yet the 
Southern Division has been given a decided character of its 
own by the marked formality of its treatment and the garden- 
like features and ornamentation of portions of it. It is de- 
BRANCH BROOK PARK, SOUTHERN DIVISION. SITE OF SUB- 
WAY AFTER IMPROVEMENT. 
signed to be comparatively ornate and full of very obvious and 
tangible special constructions and plantations, which are likely 
to be particularly attractive to the majority of visitors rather 
than to the smaller number who have a much higher satis- 
faction and enjoyment of simple naturalistic scenery. Much 
of the special beauty of this type of park gardening depends 
upon expensive architectural stone constructions. Only a 
few of these have been executed, namely three open shelters 
and a toilet house, and two arches of cut granite, carrying 
walks under the drives. 
“The Middle Division is designed to have a character in- 
termediate between the distinctly artificial style of the South- 
