Fanny Wood Day & Meadowbrook

The Meadowbrook neighborhood has a connection to nearby local annual celebration Fanny Wood Day, in nearby Fanwood, because this was her former home.  Mrs. Frances Mali is  daugher to John Taylor (JTJ) and Frances Johnston, who both went by the nickname "Fanny".  Here is the Original Fanny with narrated description by her daughter on its origins.  (serious #squadgoals right there)

As Presisdent of the NJ Central Rail Road Mr. JTJ had the rails moved, from what is today 3rd Street becoming Midway Ave once crossing Terrill Road, to it's present location. Here is the rail road pre-Fanwood Park development.

Station stops named after his daughers were Evona (which then became grant and was decomissioned) and also Fanwood Park which was a real estate enterprise for a new neighborhood just south of Scotch Plains.

Now, this later article says that Fanwood was named after his wife Fanny, Frances Johnston...

however... her surname was not Wood 

and the spelling is incorrect as it was with a Y, not 'ie'

Here are some other interesting "Fanny" mentions in the press over the years.  She attended the addition to the Obelisk in Central Park... afterall, JTJ was the first President of the Met Museum... 

Frances after her marraige to Pierre Mali, inherited from JTJ the Netherwood Farm and Johnston Estate, renaming it the Mali Estate

Frances J. Mali a.k.a. "Fanny"

An early sketch of Netherwood

The arrival of daughter Fanny to mother Fanny .... 

And to tie it all back, that same "park" atmosphere that was developed for Fanwood Park, was carried over to the Meadowbrook neighborhood when developing the former Estate and keeping that same aesthetic in mind.

Wishing you a Happy Fanny Wood Day from Meadowbrook Neighborhood History

... little bits of history repeating (more flooding news)

 While we're cleaning up, some more historic flood articles about our area...

July 29, 1897 (reminder, click to enlarge the articles or images)

1878 map for reference...

Also this article published a few years later in October 1904 describes various blockades in the Green Brook and attempts to engineer some solutions 

....

 

And again in December 1904...

... which has a mention of L.V. Randolph again from the recent post which featured his op-ed, from 10 years later in 1916... it was still an issue... 

And again this 1907 article, which amusingly references a 1905 flood...

In 1946 the flooding situation was explained to Meadowbrook

Then in February 1947 it was announced construction of catch basins would take place in Meadowbrook

And in April 1951 there were plans for storm sewers

and thats around the time Meadowbrook Incorporated stopped operating and so that's that. oh, I do find it amusing the builder in 1954 who said storm sewers are so expensive...

All just little bits of history repeating

 Hoping everyone is having a speedy recovery from a month of rain in a few short hours earlier this week, 6" of rain is a lot! 

Click below to enlarge full article

Excerpts:

Here's a map showing L.V.F. Randolph's house in the green square, and I've tried to make a transparency of the neighborhood under the sepia map... this view shows North at the top, so the writing is on it's side.... 

Turning the map 90 degrees, with east at the top of the image, the details are easier to read a bit.

Click to enlarge...

and here is an even older image illustrating Hotchkiss Machine Shop, a former Mill, on Farragut Road 

and the Berckman Farmhouse where the Johnston/Mali Estate was located with the neighborhood superimosed / transparent on the map.

The trick to summer is layers, so here are map layers

The first known map of Meadowbrook neighborhood was published in the paper 1936 to socialize the vibe, and here it is overlayed with a map of the current roads.  As a reminder, click to enlarge the images:

and this is one with satellite imagery of the houses today

Also tried this with a 1931 aerial map showing the Netherwood farm. 

And, much prior to the Netherwood (Johnston/ Mali) Estate, the 1862 map when it was the Berckmann Farm; note at the bottom of the image is the barely extant stream, "Long Meadowbrook" which is today at Milt Campbell Field... named after the first Black American to win the gold medal in the decathlon of the Summer Olympics 1956, neat! 

Anywho, decided to try this cheeky layering of maps, because as the legend goes, the estate's riding trails are today the roads in the neighborhood but really it was FHA mandates for topography... 

Ironically the FHA didn't like grids or lines, and yet instead of the map drawing depicting a two headed cul de sac monster, they instead continued using one straight riding trail in the middle of the Estate and peppered cul de sacs with some arterial roads on one big circle.    

Highlighted in blue circles are the "missing" cul de sacs

Only one cul de sac, Ivy Place, was built... Thistle Lane was at least mapped off of Mountain Ave (top right of the image) but never materialized, unlike Abbey Ct, Avon Place, and Stratford Circle which were never added beyond this initial 1936 map

though they were erroneously included in Sanborn Fire maps after ~15 years of not existing. 

Phew, that's a lot of layers!