A Visit to Newark's Branch Brook Park Just After Peak Spring Colors

 

Usually, I like to visit Newark's famous Cherry Blossom Festival at Branch Brook Park during the springtime.

Yet for some reason, it had actually been quite a long time since the last time that I had visited. If memory serves correctly, the last time might have been maybe 2014 or 2015. Not sure why that is. It is a beautiful park, and it is not too far. 

So yesterday after work, I changed that. Picked up my son, and we headed for Newark. Most people do not usually think of Newark as a beautiful or interesting place, perhaps. Yet, this is one of my personal favorite parks in not just New Jersey, but in the northeast more generally. Take a look at the pictures, and you can see why. Plus, Newark has several colleges, an Ironbound District that offers some cool places to eat, a very convenient airport, and a museum that offers an actual Buddhist temple. The library is pretty cool, too. I used to be a member some years ago now, and was impressed with it. 

Back to Branch Brook Park, though. It is the country's oldest county park, and it also has the distinction of having the largest collection of cherry blossoms in the entire nation. In other words, it a gem for New Jersey, and this is particularly true in the month of April. Yes, I finally returned for the first time in several years, and thought that it would be worth sharing the pictures that I took.

Unfortunately, it was a little past peak season, so the brilliant colors of early spring were already in retreat. There were still some nice, colorful blossoms here and there, though, and these pictures reflect that. Admittedly, though, these were not quite as nice and vibrant as some of my visits in the past. That said, my son and I still had a pleasant visit.

Here are some of the pictures that I took. Enjoy!

Frederick Olmsted was a great landscape architect, and helped design some of North America's best known parks, including Central Park, Jackson Park in Chicago (the grounds of the spectacular World's Columbian Expositionv in 1893, Mont Royal Park in Montreal, Quebec, and the Capitol building grounds in Washington, among many others. He also was instrumental with Branch Brook Park, and the beauty of his work continues to benefit the public to this day, well over a century after he died.