1952 Many Fight Subdivision; Property Owners Protest New Meadowbrook Housing

Published 30 July, 1952, just over 16 years after the neighborhood started. Take a read through the articles, click to enlarge, but here is the TLDR gist of it all ...

The "fight" and "protest" of the home owners in 1952 was that Meadowbrook Inc was going to put up smaller sized homes on even smaller lots, contrary to original plans. The confusion and frustration in these articles really comes across, but gets lost in the sauce of technical details.

Ultimately with help from various Borough and County officials they were able to preserve the lot setbacks and sizes for the neighborhood as submitted in the surveys originally within boundries of Farragut (west), Mountain (north), Netherwood (east), the Green Brook / county border (south). 

However, any influence about imposing or retaining "deed restrictions" of by-gone-eras was thoroughly abandonded as new homes were built for a new generation that included everyone.

As you can read in this excerpt there was clearly some hand wringing and standing outburst attempts to conflate lot sizes and house sizes with "deed restrictions".  The Norwood Homes (confusing as the company building them was named Norwood, not on Norwood Ave) were being built nearby Meadowbrook neighborhood on the north side of Mountain Ave and in similar areas that once upon a time were part of the Johnston/Mali Estate.  But as you can see in the confused outburst these were never part of Meadowbrook Inc., as those lands remained in ownership by the estate heirs under the Netherwood Farms Corporation.  Netherwood Farms Corp. would sell land to Meadowbrook Inc as pieces were built or completed, but that didn't mean the entire former estate was Meadowbrook... 

In 1952, these new homes were built to mirror demand for returning veterans and the VA Loans did not follow prior "deed restrictions" that were included in earlier era FHA loans when Meadowbrook neighborhood (to include Meadowbrook Village apartments in 1938!) was initially started.   After WWII, lessons learned, these new 30-year mortgages and homes were for everyone, and without restrictions.  And to this day thankfully anyone can live in Meadowbrook.

Stay tuned, there's an update to this article at the end of 1952's August with all the particulars decided upon...

... also, this was published 6 August 1952, residents of the Norwood Homes did not care for the opinions of the "choosy" Meadowbrook neighbors. Interesting notes on the veteran population as well as inflation of the time period and its effects.

Ground-breaking day at Meadowbrook

 These snippets were published July 25, 1936 about ground-breaking for the Meadowbrook neighborhood but there wasn't a lot of ceremony or pomp for the event. 

Scanned quality of the newspaper isn't the best from the source
but as a reminder, click the images to enlarge them for reading.

The article was layered into some odd columns when published in the paper
so there's another reason for the fragmented feel of these snippets...

insert your 420 jokes here if you must...

and this map was published earlier in the year, April 1936
illustrating the proposed layout of the neighborhood

You'll notice it cross the Green Brook and is in both Union and Somerset counties

and here is the first survey of the first section filed in June in Somerset county.

And then 2 years later in 1938 it was all shovels and hands on deck, even an excavator
 behind participants for the ground breaking
of Meadowbrook Village in 1938

... 3rd from the left is George Wells, president of Meadowbrook Inc.
the rest are members of the FHA and the new owners of that project.
 
And here is again, 3rd from the right, behind the guy with the shovel, at the ground breaking for the Barlow Elementary school, on the corner of East Front and Farragut, Dec 20th 1938

... my guess is there wasn't a big to-do for the ground breaking for Meadowbrook neighborhood and instead they pivoted their plans for a "reveal" opening of the "model home" later that year November 14th, 1936, as there were still minds (NIMBYs) to change about the progress of this development taking place on the old estate.

Memories of Meadowbrook when it was the Mali Estate

Published this day 10 July, 1931, student essay describing the Mali Estate and Netherwood Farm, along with other photos and maps of various eras to help with the imagery described.  Reminder to click images to enlarge the view.  Enjoy!!

Here is large full page of the article and its columns, excerpts are below...

Here is a postcard I found of the estate at a vintage shop...  let's go for a walk about shall we?

... these captioned Conservatory photos are from a 1936 article

A map of the estate with call-outs of the areas described.

A view of the mansion in a 1950ish reprint about a new bank.

Thanks for this written tour, Jean Price, all these years later 

And a reminder to be sure to visit us over on Instagram when you can: 
https://www.instagram.com/meadowbrookhistory_npnj/

New early Meadowbrook landscape image found

I came across a new-to-me early Meadowbrook neighborhood advertisement with just a landscape view, only the second of this style of ad I've come across. I included the earlier image below in this post.

It is a bit blurry to make out the scene, in addition to not the best print; nonetheless sharing this image of our neighborhood before a half dozen or so houses were built, published March 1937. The ad text features written details of two homes..

I found this ad image while on the hunt for the elusive Meadowbrook signs erected the summer of 1936 to advertise the new neighborhood but suspect the signs were temporary in nature, and no doubt were ultimately repurposed given the '37-'38 economic recession and impending war shortly thereafter the following year.

 It just feels like there ought to have been a photo somewhere of these very large signs or various views into the new neighborhood on what was once a private estate, though, maybe not given the public nature of relief gardens the years prior and activity on Netherwood Farm on Mountain Ave.

Anywho... an exciting new-to-me-image all the same of our neighborhood's "early days" before our neighborhood was fully built. And, if so inspired, it's a good reminder it is always a good time to plant a new tree.

inspiration from the Shakespeare Garden at Cedar Brook Park

Where is this image taken do you think? To me it appears to be a sycamore tree on the image's left side, or so I'm assuming by the brighness of the sun on the upper half of the tree trunk. Then some low lying shrubbery or possibly an informal hedge gesturing to the higher ground in the distance from right to center image... so maybe the Green Brook is to the left or behind the view of this image? 

And only a guess, but with the tree foliage flush, the shadows seem summertime long, my assumption was western sun causing eastern shadows, and so we're looking north/north-west. I incluced a 1931 birds-eye-view map with road and other details of the former estate if you'd like to take a crack at triangulating the view.

(Click image to enlarge)

Here is the other landscape-only ad found, published 6 months earlier in 12 September 1936

One other early ad, Feb 1937, touting the landscape 

Now go plant that tree!

Happy June 1st - enjoy your summer!

For your summer relaxation here are two photos of the missing Meadowbrook pool....
 

1937

1964

1964

Admiral Farragut namesake in the neighborhood

Here is a post-Memorial Day Holiday Weekend collection of articles and house photos woven together from searches of Admiral Farragut as a thread to connect to his namesake streets here in North Plainfield.

Click the article or photo images to enlarge them, enjoy!

1891 article about making Farragut Road open to the public and extended to second street

This map below (oriented facing east, you'll note Mountain Ave on the left)

is a Somerset county declaration and map signed by JT Johnston granting Farragut road as a public road
 from the Netherwood Estate

1884 debate about the bridge construction being rebuilt

83 Farragut Place

112 Farragut Road

162 Farragut Road

Relief gardens planted on corner of Farragut Road and Mountain Ave

Always a friendly place

... because what is confusing using the name on more than one road, Meadowbrook?

1922 survey, note it still shows Eva Coe (nee Johnston) owning the land above

88 Farragut Road, the 2nd model home of the Meadowbrook neighborhood

1898 map showing Farragut, with some indication it went further over what is today Mountain Ave

Not sure, but my guess is the Farragut residence may have been the square near what is North Jackson today, left side middle of Farragut Road on the map

There is also a nice monument statue of Admiral Farragut at Madison Square Park in NYC (26 & 5th) to visit.