The Meadowlands History Project

Hudson County History Fair This Saturday

   A Hudson County History Fair featuring vintage photos of Kearny’s old New Jersey Home for Disabled Soldiers is scheduled for this Saturday, Oct. 9.

   The free event runs from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Hudson County Community College, 161 Newkirk St., Jersey City. (Photo of disabled soldiers homes courtesy of "Images of America: Kearny," by Barbara Krasner and the Kearny Museum).

   “Come Home to History: Celebrating 350 Years of Hudson County Heritage,” will include exhibits, speakers, tours, videos and workshops for all ages.

    An article in this week’s Observer about Kearny’s contributions to the program, courtesy of the Kearny Museum, can be found by clicking here.

    The program commemorates the 350th anniversary of Peter Stuyvesant’s founding of the Town of Bergen – today Jersey City – the first permanent European settlement in New Jersey.

   For a complete schedule of events, click here.

   Click "Continue Reading ..." below for more information about the New Jersey Home for Disabled Soldiers

Sopranos Tour Includes Meadowlands Sites

    
Perhaps no television show has drawn more interest in New Jersey than The Sopranos, the wildly popular HBO drama which centered around fictional Northern New Jersey mob boss Tony Soprano. (Photo at left: Pizzaland in North Arlington, as featured in the show’s opening credits).

   Three years after The Sopranos
ended, fans from across the country and around the world still flock to see filming locations across North Jersey, many right here in the Meadowlands. While locals and adventurous tourists can seek out well-known spots armed with maps of Hudson, Bergen and Essex counties, they can also take a Sopranos Sites bus tour offered by On Location Tours.

    Highlights of the four-hour excursion include a stop at Tony’s headquarters, the Bada Bing! club (Satin Dolls) in Lodi; Holsten’s luncheon and ice cream parlor in Bloomfield – the setting of the series’ final scene; and many of the spots seen in the show’s opening credits. (Photo at right, the Muffler Man statue in Jersey City as seen during the opening credits)

    Click "Continue Reading ..." below for more information about the Sopranos Sites tour and more photos.

Kearny's Old Cedar Forest

   If you look north from the southern edge of the Saw Mill Creek Wildlife Management Area, you can still see the remains of an old White-Cedar forest, where -- legend has it -- pirates used to hide after raiding boats in New York Harbor.

   The NJMC's Angelo Urato took the above photo last week.

   The forest was burned in the late 1700s-early 1800s (depending on which source you consult) in an effort to drive out the pirates.

   More on the Meadowlands' cedar forests and pirates here and here.

Museum Offer for Kearny Library Patrons

    The Kearny Public Library has a great program for patrons interested in visiting the American Museum of Natural History and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.

     Residents with library cards in good standing can check out family passes for free visits to each museum, a savings of up to $68 for the Natural History Museum and more than $20 for the Botanic Garden.    

   There is no charge to reserve a pass, but a $40 deposit is required. The deposit is refunded when passes are returned on time.

   For more information, call the Kearny Public Library at 201-998-2666.

Celebrating the Life of George Rogers

   The Town of  Kearny lost one of its most knowledgeable and generous citizens when Town Historian and lifelong resident George Rogers passed away last October at age 88.

   On Thursday, Feb. 25 the Kearny Public Library is hosting a “Celebration of George Rogers’ Life” from 7 to 9 p.m.

   The program will include excerpts of George’s oral history project for the library and reminiscences from family and friends. All are welcome to share their memories of George. The library is located at 318 Kearny Ave.

  A retired Kearny firefighter, George could easily recite the town' s history to its earliest days and he often volunteered his time to work with Kearny children on school history projects.

   George was gracious enough to discuss his experiences growing up in Kearny with the NJMC for our Oral History Project. To hear George’s recollections and view some archival photos, click here.

Pirates of the Meadowlands

  

    Beware of Pirates!

    Throughout the 18^th century this warning was likely given to those who traveled through the Meadowlands by boat or carriage.    

   Though pirates are most well-known for pilfering on the high seas of the Caribbean, they also enjoyed a large presence in the swampland and forests along the Hackensack River.

   According to an article in New Jersey Monthly by Phillip Longman, the thick cedar forests and murky swamps in and around Kearny made perfect hideouts for buccaneers to base their New Jersey operations. “The law dared not venture into this quagmire of thieves,” Longman wrote, “and so travellers did well to go armed, if at all.”

Click "Continue reading ..." below for more  information on the pirates of the Meadowlands and to download the New Jersey Monthly article.

BLACK HISTORY WEDNESDAY: Ruby Dee, Kearny

                                                                                                            Photo credit: AT&T Archives.

   

The Meadowlands Commission is honoring Black History Month with a weekly post on this blog. Today the topic is  Ruby Dee -- pictured above working in Kearny. We would like to thank Tammy Marshall, librarian of the Meadowlands Environmental Research Institute, for her help in these Black History Month posts.

    Actress and civil rights champion Ruby Dee, who was born in Cleveland in 1924 and raised in Harlem, worked at the Western Electric Company’s Kearny Works during World War II, soldering wires on an assembly line.

   She graduated from Hunter College and got her first Broadway role in a play called "Jeb," about a black GI war hero. The star was Ossie Davis, whom she married two years later.  

   Both Davis and Dee were active in the Civil Rights Movement throughout their careers. Dee has been involved with the NAACP, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE).

   Dee starred in "American Gangster," set in part in Bergen County, in 2007.

   For more information on Ruby Dee, click here.

   For more information on Kearny's Western Electric plant, click "Continue reading..." 

Kearny/Rutherford: Jim Kazalis

  Growing up in Kearny in the 1950s, lifelong Meadowlands resident Jim Kazalis spent much of his free time hunting and fishing with his father on the Hackensack River near Laurel Hill and exploring local landfills.

   In the following audio interview, Jim shares several vividly detailed recollections of his boyhood adventures hunting, trapping and seeking treasure in the Meadows. 

   Now a Rutherford resident, Jim brings the conversation full circle as he talks about introducing the next generation – his 6-year-old grandson – to the Meadowlands' wonders.

 Click "Continue reading ..." below to hear Jim’s stories, read his account about growing up in the Meadowlands and view archival photos.

Kearny: George Rogers, Town Historian

   In the following audio interview, lifelong Kearny resident and Town Historian George Rogers recalls the town the way it used to be.

 He talks about the days when children bought milk from dairy farms, rode trolley cars up and down Midland Avenue and explored the old copper mines off the Belleville Turnpike just over the North Arlington border.

   George also talks about his time working for the Clark Thread Company, at one time one of Kearny’s biggest employers.

    Click "Continue reading ..." to hear George's stories and see some archival photos of George.

   In the following audio interview, lifelong Kearny resident and Town Historian George Rogers recalls the town the way it used to be.

 He talks about the days when children bought milk from dairy farms, rode trolley cars up and down Midland Avenue and explored the old copper mines off the Belleville Turnpike just over the North Arlington border.

   George also talks about his time working for the Clark Thread Company, at one time one of Kearny’s biggest employers.

    Click "Continue reading ..." to hear George's stories and see some archival photos of George.