Tinasbeen

Our mini-tour of Newark

This Saturday Bill and I decided to take a little driving tour of Newark, and I mapped us out a route that hit some of the highlights from the "Once and Future Newark" documentary. Sadly, we forgot our camera, though - I'll try to make up for it by posting some links to photos of where we went.

We started with a visit to Branch Brook Park, where we picked up some local corn, honey, and tomatoes at the farmer's market and then drove around a bit. Here's a link to a page with some photos and the history of the park - http://www.branchbrookpark.org/about1.htm - turns out it was designed in 1900 by Frederick Law Olmstead, the creator of Central Park. (As was Independence Park, a great little park just a short walk from us in the Ironbound.) Branch Brook's probably best known for its springtime cherry blossoms - check out some photos from a fan of them here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/drp/10465136/in/set-258501/ Hopefully we'll be able to check them out ourselves next April!

We then enjoyed getting a bit lost in the Forest Hills section of Newark, which borders the park and is filled with huge, gorgeous homes. Check out some photos of them and some more information on the history of the neighborhood here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forest_Hill,_Newark,_New_Jersey

Our next stop was one of the highlights of the day - a visit to the Sacred Heart Basilica (begun in 1899 and finished in 1954!) It's a huge stone cathedral in the middle of a fairly normal neighborhood, next to one of the city's high schools - quite a sight. The Basilica's website has a great virtual tour here: http://www.cathedralbasilica.org/tour/nojava/index.shtml - I highly recommend checking it out.

After leaving the cathedral, we found our way to the Greater Newark Conservancy's new Urban Environmental and Ecological Center - check out the link here for more details: http://newark1.com/conserve/enviro_description.htm . This terrific little community garden, greenhouse, and education center was is in the process of being created on the grounds of a former synagogue, and normally isn't open to the public. But we were lucky enough to stop by during their harvest festival, and had a great time drinking apple cider, judging a scarecrow contest, and picking out a pumpkin to bring home. The volunteers from the Conservancy were interested to hear that we had just moved from Philadelphia - they said that they hoped Newark would eventually have as much of thriving community garden movement as Philly does.

Unfortunately, our trip was cut a little short at this point, since it started raining - we drove through Weequahic Park and Lincoln Park on our way back, but real visits to those are going to have to wait until we get another free day - and that time, hopefully we'll remember our camera!

posted by Tina @ 11:17 AM