In memoriam

If you happen to pass through Lenape Park in Union, you might notice a tree wearing a white hat.

If you look a little closer, your amusement might turn to sadness.

Although the hat alone tells you pretty much all you need to know, Segundo Padilla was smoothing the path here when his roller toppled off the edge of a shallow embankment (presumably the one near this memorial).

The ink on the hat is fresh, and it’s my guess that the hat was just recently nailed here in memory of the one-year anniversary of his death.

It’s a tragedy, any way you slice it.

It’s art!

At first I thought this teepee-looking thing in the South Mountain Reservation might be an educational Native American exhibit, something like the the Lenape hut in the Great Swamp. But after seeing a few more of these trees with sticks propped around them, and hearing chatter about local artists who come out here to play in the woods… I think it’s art.

It’s about 5 feet tall, and it’s got an entrance, so you can even go sit inside, if you like!

New Jersey West Line

This wall of rocks, near the first sharp curve of Brookside Drive in Millburn’s South Mountain Reservation, is a stone abutment. It’s one of the last remnants of the New Jersey West Line Railroad east of Summit.

(Below is what this stone wall looks like from the road, if you’re NOT the type to go climbing up steep poison-ivy filled hills to get better photos of historical ruins [cough]. See it peeking through, there on the left?)

This stone abutment originally supported a wooden trestle locally known as the Ghost Bridge, so-called because there was never actually a railroad built on top of it.

There was never a railroad on it because east of Summit, the New Jersey West Line was never fully constructed.

Construction started in 1870. They bought the land for the right-of-way, and they graded the land, and they even laid tracks in some places… but construction was stopped by 1873, in part due to corporate politics, in part due to lack of finances (Panic of 1873, anyone?).

Before 1873, everyone was so certain it would be built that the railroad started appearing on several maps. Here’s an 1872 map with the Morris & Essex line highlighted in blue, and the proposed New Jersey West Line highlighted in red (hint: not the county boundaries). (Click to see it larger.)

(1872)

If part of the NJWL on that map looks familiar… that’s because WEST of Summit, the New Jersey West Line became the modern-day Gladstone branch of the Morris & Essex line!

(2012)

(As a New Providence resident, I use the Gladstone branch every day! Hooray for partial construction of the NJ West Line!)

This isn’t to say that NOTHING east of Summit was ever built on the NJWL. There was a quarry in the South Mountain Reservation that needed to export its rocks to the rest of the world. The solution? Reclaim an unused bit of the NJWL that conveniently connected to the Morris & Essex Millburn station! Here’s a map from 1906, showing the railroad spur in use long after construction had otherwise ceased on the line:

(1906)

And that’s all I know. Abandoned railroads are fun!

 

References:
Beers, F.W. (1872). “Topographical map of Hudson, Union, and Essex Cos, New Jersey.” State atlas of New Jersey based on State Geological Survey and from additional surveys by and under the direction of F.W. Beers. Beers, Comstock & Cline: New York, NY. From the David Rumsey Historical Map Collection. http://www.davidrumsey.com/.

Lampe, O.W. (1999, 2000). Images of America: Millburn. Arcadia Publishing: Charleston, SC. ISBN 0738504130.

The Millburn-Short Hills Historical Society. (n.d.). The Map Room. “1906 Atlas Map of Millburn, Plate 32.” http://www.mshhistsoc.org/map-room.

Wikipedia. (2010, last edit). “New Jersey West Line Railroad.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Jersey_West_Line_Railroad.

 

 

(P.S. Hey, speaking of railroads and history, Amtrak is sponsoring National Train Day this weekend, in honor of the completion of the country’s first transcontinental railroad in 1869. If you live near a city, and you’re into trains, why not check it out?)

The littlest park

This statue in Springfield of a Continental soldier has the distinction of standing on the smallest state park in New Jersey. How cool is that!

…It’s almost the sort of thing they’d make a sitcom episode about!

Fishing for birds

Someone went fishing in the Passaic River and got his/her lure tangled in a tree!

A slice of history

In the Frelinghuysen Arboretum, there’s a display with an old stump. It has numbers to point out which rings are associated with what years, and why those years are historically relevant— much like the famed Giant Sequoia in NYC’s Museum of Natural History, but on a much smaller and more local scale.

“19,” for example, is for 1968, when the Great Swamp was officially called a National Wilderness Area.

Almost all of the associated history is of local interest only, and even some of those local interests are questionable. (Since when does Morristown care about Atlantic City?) Here’s the complete list, in case you have some burning curiosity:

1. 1738 – Morris County is created by the state legistlature
2. 1738 – Colonel Lewis Morris of the province of colonial New Jersey becomes first governor
3. 1755 – The Morristown Green is first used and constructed to serve as the town courthouse and jail
4. 1777 – George Washington spends 5 months in Morris County with his troops
5. 1787 – New Jersey becomes the third state to join the Union
6. 1790 – Trenton is selected to become the state capital
7. 1816 – The First Presbyterian Church is founded in Morristown
8. 1835 – Morris and Essex Railroad Company chartered
9. 1861 – The Civil War begins
10. 1865 – The sixteenth President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln is assassinated by John Wilkes Booth
11. 1879 – Thomas Edison invents the first light bulb
12. 1887 – Matilda Felinghuysen is born in New York City
13. 1891 – “Whippany Farms,” now known as Frelinghuysen Arboretum, is built as a summer home for the Frelinghuysen family
14. 1915 – Alison Turnbull Hopkins, Officer of the Women’s Political Union, campaigns for New Jersey’s suffrage referendum in Morristown
15. 1926 – Bell Laboratories converts a dairy barn into experimental radio station to develop high power broadcasting
16. 1929 – The Seeing Eye is originally incorporated into Morristown
17. 1930 – Charles B. Darrow develops the game Monopoly. Names in the game originate from Atlantic City street names
18. 1939 – More than 50,000 New Jersey residents join the WWII effort
19. 1968 – The Great Swamp is classified as a National Wilderness Area; it is a landmark event
20. 1969 – Matilda Frelinghuysen dies at the age of 82
21. 1971 – The Frelinghuysen Arboretum is dedicated
22. 1978 – New Jersey legalizes gambling in Atlantic City. One of four casinos opens to an enthusiastic response
23. 1975 – “Branching Out!,” the children’s gardening program, is started by the Garden Club of Morristown in conjunction with the Morris County Park Commission

Nike Road: Part 2

Remember when I was rambling about Nike Road yesterday? Do you? Today I intend to ramble about the Nike Road bridge.

For twenty years after the Watchung Reservation Nike base was deactivated in 1963, as far as I can tell, both the launcher and the control area lay abandoned and unused.

And then, in the 1970s, I-78 came along.

The interstate was originally supposed to cut right through the Watchung Reservation, but the locals were definitively not okay with that. For years, a war raged between angry locals and equally angry road-builders.

Eventually, in the mid-1980s, they came to an agreement: I-78 would be built, but it would just skirt the northern edge of the Watchung Reservation (which necessitated blasting through the Second Watchung Mountain, which was a pain), and several non-road-bearing land bridges would be constructed to allow wildlife from the Watchung Reservation to migrate across the interstate without interfering with traffic.

One of those land bridges, as I’ve already shown you, was the bunny bridge.

The other land bridge is Nike Road, a little one-lane maintenance road that ran from Glenside Avenue to the Missile Tracking Radar Station.

 

While the lore says that Nike Road has always been part of the Nike missile station, the Nike Road bridge is dated 1985; if the missile station was deactivated in 1963, and I-78 wasn’t constructed until the 1980s, there was certainly no reason to build an overpass for an unused road. And there was certainly no need to line it with the same tall grass that’s found on the bunny bridge.

 

So as far as I can tell, Nike Road bridge was wholly intended to serve as an alternative to the bunny bridge for a wildlife migration land bridge… and maybe some maintenance vehicles from time to time, because why else would they go to the trouble of paving it?

(I haven’t seen this explicitly stated anywhere, so this is my own conclusion; if you have additional information either confirming or denying this, please leave a comment below!)

But as I mentioned yesterday, it seems like vehicles aren’t really a priority, because the road is currently obstructed by logs (which are, generally speaking, not very friendly to things on wheels).

And that’s that. For additional information, refer to my sources below.

 

References:

Alpert, S. (n.d.). “New Jersey Roads – Nikesite Rd., Union Co.” Alps’ Roads. http://www.alpsroads.net/roads/nj/nikesite/.

Alpert, S. (n.d.). “New Jersey Roads – I-78.” Alps’ Roads. http://www.alpsroads.net/roads/nj/i-78/.

Bender, D.E. (n.d.). “Nike Battery NY-73: Summit, NJ.” Nike Missiles and Missile Sites. http://alpha.fdu.edu/~bender/NY73.html.

Harpster, F. (2009). “Missiles in Mountainside: Nike Battery NY-73.” From the Hetfield House (newsletter). http://www.mountainsidehistory.org/files/HHnewsletter09final.pdf (PDF).

LostinJersey Blog. (2009). “Summit Nike base.” http://lostinjersey.wordpress.com/2009/03/19/summit-nike-base/.

Troeger, V.B. (2005). Images of America: Berkeley Heights Revisited. Arcadia Publishing: Charleston, SC. ISBN 0738537527.

Wikipedia. (2012). “Interstate 78 in New Jersey.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_78_in_New_Jersey#History.

Nike Road: Part 1

This is approximately where the Nike missiles in the Watchung Reservation used to be controlled!

You may recall when I wrote about the Nike missile launch site, which used to be located where the Watchung Stables are now. If you don’t (don’t feel bad, I don’t expect you to), here’s a recap.

In 1957, during the Cold War, the U.S. army declared that it would construct a Nike missile base on the Watchung Reservation. Despite locals’ loud protests, the base (NY-73) was completed in 1958.

The base consisted of two parts: the launcher (now the Watchung Stables), where missiles were assembled, tested, and stored in three underground magazines (each of which could hold ten Nike Ajax missiles); and the control area (near the present Governor Livingston High School), officially known as the Missile Tracking Radar Station.

For reasons apparently unknown, the battery started shutting down in 1962, less than four years after they opened it. (It was officially deactivated in 1963.)

While there are reportedly no signs left of the launcher near the Watchung Stables, a little bit of barbed wire and a concrete slab still mark the former control area.

 

The interesting part of this is the long, winding, abandoned maintenance road that leads from Glenside Avenue to Governor Livingston High School.

 

When I visited the control-area road, there were a lot of fallen trees blocking the road, presumably left from Hurricane Irene (August 2011) and the Halloween Blizzard (October 2011). Since the road is currently impassible to vehicular traffic, and nobody has bothered to move the logs for 5-8 months, I suspect the road doesn’t get a lot of traffic.

 

I did see more joggers and pedestrians than I expected. So the road DOES get used.

 

Stay tuned for Part 2 of the Nike Road adventure tomorrow!

 

References:

Alpert, S. (n.d.). “New Jersey Roads – Nikesite Rd., Union Co.” Alps’ Roads. http://www.alpsroads.net/roads/nj/nikesite/.

Alpert, S. (n.d.). “New Jersey Roads – I-78.” Alps’ Roads. http://www.alpsroads.net/roads/nj/i-78/.

Bender, D.E. (n.d.). “Nike Battery NY-73: Summit, NJ.” Nike Missiles and Missile Sites. http://alpha.fdu.edu/~bender/NY73.html.

Harpster, F. (2009). “Missiles in Mountainside: Nike Battery NY-73.” From the Hetfield House (newsletter). http://www.mountainsidehistory.org/files/HHnewsletter09final.pdf (PDF).

LostinJersey Blog. (2009). “Summit Nike base.” http://lostinjersey.wordpress.com/2009/03/19/summit-nike-base/.

Troeger, V.B. (2005). Images of America: Berkeley Heights Revisited. Arcadia Publishing: Charleston, SC. ISBN 0738537527.

Wikipedia. (2012). “Interstate 78 in New Jersey.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_78_in_New_Jersey#History.

Clockwork

Patriot Park (in Springfield) is a small lot of grass on the corner of Wabeno and Springfield Avenues. Apparently the park was only established last June! This is its clock.

…OR IS IT A STEAMPUNK GAS MASK? Can you see it?! With its clockwork goggles and long straight nose-pole? See it? Maybe? No, I’m probably just crazy.

Bunny bridge!

Did you know this area has not just one unused overpass with no road on top, but several?

When plans for the construction of I-78 were unveiled, they were met with a LOT of opposition, because it needed to pass through the Watchung Reservation. And both sides butted heads for years: the section of I-78 from Exits 33-41 was completed in 1974, but the section through the Watchung Reservation (Exits 43-48) wasn’t opened until 1986.

In order to get locals to agree to the road construction at all, the roadmakers needed to make a few concessions:

1. I-78 was shifted to the northern edge of the reservation, so as to disturb as little of the land as possible. The original plan was to barrel right through. (This northern route made construction a hell of a lot more difficult, since they had to blast through extensive portions of the Second Watchung Mountain.)
2. Extra land bridges were constructed to allow animals to easily migrate to and from the Watchung Reservation without getting killed by interstate traffic.

One of the land bridges (shown above), colloquially called the “bunny bridge,” really is just a field of grass over I-78.

 

This is what it looks like when you’re approaching it going west to east:

 

(By the way: I’m having computer problems. I may miss some updates this week.)

 

 

References:

LostinJersey Blog. (2009). “The bunny bridge of Watchung.” http://lostinjersey.wordpress.com/2009/03/19/the-bunny-bridge-of-watchung/.

Wikipedia. (2012). “Interstate 78 in New Jersey.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_78_in_New_Jersey.