Meadowbrook Neighborhood History: April showers bring Meadowbrook neighborhoods

The neighborhood's existence really began this month of April in 1936 as the concept of converting the Netherwood Farm and Estate, aka Mali Estate, was presented and socialized in advance of the "Opening Day" in November 1936. Here is a collection of published articles, maps, and aerial photos that frame these early moments of the Meadowbrook neighborhood starting in April. As always, a reminder to click to enlarge the images or articles.

Published 16 April, 1936

Zoning notifications and such, published on 21 and 22 April, 1936

And then after all of the above mentioned meetings, on 28 April, 1936 was the published map of the proposed neighborhood.

1862 map, before Netherwood (note: Long Meadowbrook)

the Berckmann's sold the land to the Johnston's

Berckmann then moved famously to farm in Augusta, GA which became where the Master's Golf Tournament is played today

here is a current day road overlay.... you can see how they moved the railroad from this eary map
into what became Fanwood Station as we now drive on Midway.

in the Bird's Eye drawing below
Netherwood Farm is at the top along Mountain Ave

with Netherwood Estate at the bottom, just above Johnston Ave....

1878 map of the Farm and Estate...

1931 aerial map... Farm top left, estate and Green Brook right side

... in 1929 the estate almost became a park!

... early sketches of the top half...

and the bottom half...
Union county proposed study map for the Johnston Estate in 1929 by Olmstead Brothers

But this is what was proposed in 1936 .......

Highlighted here is Boatcroft Lane's location . . .

Here are some of the streets that were imagined for the Union County side on the brochure...

and some of the proposed roads on the Somerset County side

described in this 1936 article, the road names made it as far as a 1949 map below, but were never built.

1947 progress in an aerial photo

Look how little the trees are, some only just 10 years old - time to refresh and plant more!

... back to the roads ...

comparing a 1956 aerial photo

a neat nearby neighborhood view
East End school is the blue squre in the middle, Farragut is on the far right, Mountain Ave at the top.

Published 27 June 1936

Published 25 July, 1936, ground-breaking announced for the Meadowbrook neighborhood

this photo was for the Meadowbrook Village garden apartments ground breaking in 1938 But a similar cast of charachters eg. George Wells (3rd from left) with FHA directors