Urban Agenda Magazine, Summer 2017

URBAN AGENDA MAGAZINE

Summer 2017

Congratulations to the Class of 2017!

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FROM CENTRAL AMERICA TO YOUR BACKYARD UA_adtemplate.indd 4

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THE WORLD IN YOUR BACKYARD When you join the Zoological Society of New Jersey, the non-profit that supports Turtle Back Zoo, the animals aren’t the only ones who benefit.

Membership includes: unlimited zoo admission for a year; free or discounted admission at 100+ zoos and aquariums; admission to free members-only events; zoo gift shop discounts; a Turtle Back Zoo car magnet; and more.

Visit TurtleBackZoo.com today to become a member!

TurtleBackZoo.com • 973.731.5800 • 560 Northfield Avenue, West Orange, NJ 07052

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Trust: Integrity and transparency in every interaction.

SU M M ER 2 01 7 EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Lynn Adams Smith CREATIVE DIRECTOR Jorge Naranjo ART DIRECTOR Jeffrey Edward Tryon GRAPHIC DESIGNERS Matthew DiFalco Erica Cardenas PHOTOGRAPHER Amoreena O’Bryon CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Stuart Mitchner Laurie Pellichero Sarah Emily Gilbert Doug Wallack Ilene Dube Wendy Plump Taylor Smith ADVERTISING DIRECTOR Robin Broomer ACCOUNT MANAGERS Jennifer Covill Charles R. Plohn Monica Sankey Erin Toto OPERATIONS MANAGER Melissa Bilyeu

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Urban Agenda Magazine. All rights reserved. Nothing herein may be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission of the publisher. To purchase PDF ďŹ les or reprints, please call 609.924.5400 or e-mail melissa.bilyeu@witherspoonmediagroup.com. Š2017 Witherspoon Media Group

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SUMMER 2017

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CONTENTS

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6

54

Fostering a Love of Learning: Emma Wil lard School and Far Hil ls Country Day School 6

Walt Whitman’s New York City

BY STUART MI TCHNER

8

Q&A With Bruce Grund lock, Royce Brook Golf Club 22

America’s Earliest Gardeners: The Founding Fathers Paved The Way For A Green America

SUMMER 2017

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BY I LENE DUBE

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The Seeing Eye: Leading The Way

BY SAR AH EMI LY GI LBERT

34

18

In The Pinelands National Reserve

BY DOUG WALLACK

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Turtle Back Zoo 44

New Jersey’s National Parks

BY WENDY PLUMP

46 ———

Destination: Red Bank

BY SAR AH EMI LY GI LBERT

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Ship Ahoy!

BY SAR AH EMI LY GI LBERT

46

18

Hel lo, Sailor!

BY SAR AH EMI LY GI LBERT

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44

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The Art and Life of the Landscape, From Cézanne to Capability Brown

BY STUART MI TCHNER

30

40

Calendar 50

A Wel l-Designed Life

On the Cover: Graduation celebrations at the Emma Willard School.

Photography by Amoreena O’Bryon

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Photography by Amoreena O’Bryon/emma willard school

Fostering a

Love of Learning Emma Willard School Located on Mount Ida in Troy, N.Y., the Emma Willard School was founded in 1814 by Emma Hart Willard, who is remembered for her trailblazing efforts on behalf of women’s education.

In honoring its founder’s vision, the mission of Emma Willard School is to proudly foster in each young woman a love of learning, the habits of an intellectual life, and the character, moral strength, and qualities of leadership to serve and shape her world.

“As Emma begins its third century, it stands on the strength of its remarkable traditions and success…. Everything about Emma always has been and always will be for girls,” says Interim Head of School Dr. Susan R. Groesbeck on the school’s website. “The school’s stunning collegiate gothic campus, which is on the National Historic Register, hums with the purposeful energy of a uniquely authentic, deeply personal, and distinctively global community. Girls come to Emma from around the nation and around the world.

“Our girls believe it is their responsibility to ‘serve and shape’ their world — both today and throughout their lives. Our faculty and staff are committed not only to embracing and exploring the individual potential of each girl—her special talents, her drive, and her focus— but to the health and wellness of her mind and body.”

An independent, university-preparatory school, Emma Willard offers both day and boarding school for female students in grades 9-12. For more about the Emma Willard School, call 518.833.1300 or visit the website at www.emmawillard.org.

photography courtesy of Far Hills Country Day School

Far Hills Country Day School

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Located in Far Hills, N.J., about an hour west of New York City, Far Hills Country Day School is a private, co-educational day school for students in Pre-K through eighth grade.

Founded in 1929, Far Hills Country Day School believes in a balanced approach to education that includes solid academics paired with valuable life skills and character development. The school’s “whole child” philosophy includes an emphasis on classroom personalization, differentiation, and individualization.

“At Far Hills, we believe that academic excellence combined with character development provides students with the cognitive skills and moral compass necessary to achieve to their full potential in school and in life,” says Head of School Tom Woelper on the school’s website. “Our teachers meet students where they are by differentiating instruction so that each child feels supported and challenged. Outside of the classroom, Far Hills offers a robust array of co-curricular options from musical theater to math league to technology and much more, so students can find and develop new passions.

“At Far Hills we develop and, more importantly, assess for such performance character skills such as teamwork, creativity, ethics, resilience, curiosity, and time management. Most of all, Far Hills is a community bursting with love and joy.”

The school also offers one-week Smart Fun Camps from June 19 to August 11.

For more information about Far Hills Country Day School, call 908.766.0622 or visit the website at www.fhcds.org.

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Congratulations COLLEGE ENROLLMENT BY COLLEGE, CLASS OF 2017 American University (4) Lynn University Babson College

Cal Poly State University Rochester Institute of Technology (2) Univ. of California at Los Angeles

Cooper Union SUNY Albany Cornell University (6)

Franklin & Marshal College University of Vermont (3) George Washington University

Middlebury College (2) Bard College (2) New York University (2) Barnard College Northeastern University (2) Berry College Oberlin College Boston University (3) University of Oregon Brigham Young University Purdue University Brown University (2) Rice University

University of Rochester (2) Carleton College Rollins College (2) Carnegie Mellon University (2) School of Visual Arts Case Western Reserve University University of Southern California University of Chicago (2) Spelman College Clark University University of St. Andrews Columbia University (2) St. Lawrence University (3)

Swarthmore College Dartmouth College Taylor’s University Dickinson College Trinity College (2) Drew University (3) Trinity College Dublin Drexel University Tufts University Fairfield University Union College Fordham University (2) Vassar College (2)

Washington University (2) Harvard University University of Washington Hobart & William Smith Colleges Wellesley College Iowa State University Wesleyan University Lafayette College Wheaton College (2) London School of Economics Wofford College Loyola University, Maryland Yale University

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S

orting out his first impressions of Walt Whitman in a letter from November 1856, Henry David Thoreau admits feeling “much interested and provoked“: “Though peculiar and rough in his exterior,...he is essentially a gentleman. I am still somewhat in a quandary about him...He told us that he loved to ride up and down Broadway all day on an omnibus, sitting beside the driver, listening to the roar of the carts, and sometimes gesticulating and declaiming Homer at the top of his voice.”

Actually, it was more often than not Shakespeare that Whitman was declaiming while riding “the old Broadway stages” like “the Yellow-birds, the Red-birds, the original Broadway, the Fourth Avenue, the Knickerbocker.”

Looking back on those mid-century jaunts in Specimen Days in America (1881-1882), he recalls reciting “some stormy passage from Julius Caesar... (you could roar as loudly as you chose in that heavy, dense, uninterrupted street-bass).” He makes special mention of the drivers, “a strange, natural, quick-eyed and wondrous race” and savors the flavor of their names, “Broadway Jack, Dressmaker, Balky Bill, George Storms, Old Elephant, his brother Young Elephant (who came afterward), Tippy, Pop Rice, Big Frank, Yellow Joe, Pete Callahan, Patsy Dee.” These men “had immense qualities, largely animal—eating, drinking, women—great personal pride, in their way...Not only for comradeship, and sometimes affection—great studies I found them also.”

The passage ends with a wink at the critics who he imagines will “laugh heartily” to hear that “the influence of those Broadway omnibus jaunts and drivers and declamations and escapades undoubtedly enter’d into the gestation of Leaves of Grass.”

Thanks to Gay Wilson Allen’s biography, The Solitary Singer, we have a snapshot of the poet (“about 40 years of age”) at this time: “he was always dressed in a blue flannel coat and vest, with gray and baggy trousers, ...wore a woolen shirt, with a Byronic collar, low in the neck, without a cravat...and a large felt hat. His hair was iron gray, and he had a full beard and mustache of the same color. His face and neck were bronzed by exposure to the sun and air. He was large and gave the impression of being a vigorous man.”

WHITMAN’S POWER The vigorous man’s impact on the author of Walden can be likened to the way Whitman has embraced and repelled, seduced and intimidated generations of readers. In a subsequent letter, Thoreau writes: “We ought to rejoice greatly in him. He occasionally suggests something a little more than human. You can’t confound him with the other inhabitants of Brooklyn or New York. How they must shudder when they read him! He is awfully good.” But then, “To be sure I sometimes feel a little imposed on. By his heartiness and broad generalities he puts me into a liberal frame of mind prepared to see wonders,—as it were, sets me upon a hill or in the midst of a plain,—stirs me well up, and then—throws in a thousand brick.” This last figure would surely have amused Walter Whitman, the builder of houses. There’s also a potent insight in the phrase “more than human,” although Walt being Walt would have dismissed the idea of being set apart (as in not to be “confounded” with his fellow New Yorkers whom he loves en masse and who know him by his “nighest name”) when he imagines himself submerged in the human tide. In his own way, Thoreau, whose famous devotion to solitude would seem to make him the roaring poet’s absolute opposite, has expressed the truth about a life-force that can be at once in the city and of the city while being the city, and seeing beyond the city.

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“FACE TO FACE”

CITY AS AUTHOR

It stands to reason that the work Thoreau remembers best is “the Sun-Down Poem,” later retitled “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry,” where Walt looks directly at us, “face to face,” across the centuries, as if to call us by our first or “nighest” name as we do him, our Walt, the world’s Walt, who disdains convention, complacency, the reality of limits, mortality, life, death, time, space, incarnating himself in us as he does in the two cities he would embody as one, Brooklyn and Manhattan. “Curious what is more subtle than this which ties me to the woman or man that looks in my face,/Which fuses me into you now, and pours my meaning into you.” The outlandishly presumptuous claims Walt makes are convincing and endearing in their force, their spontaneity, as he tells us that if we have thoughts of him (as we surely do, reading him, his words), he has thoughts of us. “Who knows but I am enjoying this/Who knows but I am as good as looking at you now, for all you cannot see me?”

That was in the 1850s. Whitman returned to New York two decades later in summer 1878, older and ailing, an experience he expands on in Specimen Days under the title “Human and Heroic New York.” After three weeks of resuming “with curiosity the crowds, the streets he knew, Broadway, “human appearances and manners as seen in all these,” he finds that after “making all allowances for the shadows and side-streaks of a million-headed-city,” the “brief total of the impressions, the human qualities, of these vast cities, is...comforting, even heroic, beyond statement...In old age, lame and sick, pondering for years on many a doubt and danger for this republic of ours—fully aware of all that can be said on the other side—I find in this visit to New York, and the daily contact and rapport with its myriad people, on the scale of the oceans and tides, the best, most effective medicine my soul has yet partaken—the grandest physical habitat and surroundings of land and water the globe affords—namely, Manhattan island and Brooklyn, which the future shall join in one city—city of superb democracy, amid superb surroundings.”

Obviously this later vision of the city, for all its optimism, has little of the face-to-the-face-of-theages cosmic immediacy of “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” where “shadows and side-streaks” need not be allowed for when the poet’s very essence is in flux, “the impalpabe sustenance of me from all things, at all hours of the day...myself disintegrated, everyone disintegrated, yet part of the scheme.”

But what of ”the others that are to follow me, the ties between me and them;/The certainty of others—the life, love, sight, hearing of others”?

With a very “flood-tide” of poetic license already flowing below us, why not imagine Walt peering from Brooklyn Ferry into the first two decades of the 21st century where a young woman “attired in the usual costume” is sitting with her students mid-span on the Brooklyn Bridge reciting “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry”?

Or, perhaps “the woman who waits for him” is holding open to the title page a copy of the first edition of Leaves of Grass to show that under the title where the name of the author should be it says only “Brooklyn New York,” as if the city were the author, which is something the woman in question, Karen Karbiener, a Whitman scholar at New York University, pointed out to me after citing “City of Ships,” in which Walt in effect calls New York by its nighest name, “O city/Behold me! incarnate me, as I have incarnated you!/I have rejected nothing you offer’d me—whom you adopted, I have adopted;/Good or bad, I never question you—I love all—I do not condemn anything;/I chant and celebrate all that is yours.”

FOLLOWING WHITMAN’S FOOTSTEPS A New Yorker born and raised in Walt’s neck of the woods, and a Columbia graduate, Karbiener teaches “American Outlaw: Walt Whitman’s Radical Cultural Legacy,” a sophomore seminar divided between the classroom, where she discusses Whitman’s ideas of race, gender, politics

and art, and the street, where she takes her students on guided literary tours, following Walt’s footsteps around Brooklyn Heights, where the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass was printed; around Newspaper Row, where Walt got his start; down to what remains of Pfaff’s Cellar, America’s “first Bohemian hotspot and his hangout in the late 1850s”; they take the Staten Island Ferry, “in an effort to simulate those countless rides on the Fulton Ferry.” Karbiener’s favorite tour is a perambulation around Fort Greene Park (established as Brooklyn’s first official park in 1847, because of Whitman’s almost-daily newspaper editorials calling for the need for green space in his neighborhood), then down the now omnibus-less Myrtle Avenue (passing the site of the offices of Whitman’s Brooklyn Freeman) to Walt’s house at 99 Ryerson, where in 2008 Karbiener and her class of 26 received an impromtu tour from the ”congenial landlord” who “ushered them through the ground floor entrance and up the staircases that Walt daily ascended and descended in 1855.”

In her lookingforwhitman blog, Karbiener notes that “though the house is now divided up into smaller apartments (Pratt students and recent immigrants now live in closer quarters than the Whitman family did), the spirit of the house still felt broad, muscular.”

Besides editing Leaves of Grass: First and Death-bed Editions for Barnes & Noble Classics, Karen Karbiener is at work on a book titled Walt Whitman and New York: The Urban Roots of Leaves of Grass and is excited to have a volume of Whitman coming out this month in the Poetry for Kids series published by MoonDance Press for the 9-12 age group. Her selections are a much-needed response to the fact that the best of Whitman is so often excluded from young readers. Her notes in the section, “What Walt Was Thinking,” clearly reflect her enlightened passion for her subject. In her comment on “Give Me the Splendid Silent Sun,” where Walt “bares his city soul,” he “fell in love with New York at a time when other writers simply did not find inspiration or even a reason to live in the city. Walt felt energized instead of overwhelmed by its constant motion, heard music instead of madness in its street din, and saw humanity instead of strangeness in its crowds.”

One of Karbiener’s favorite projects is New Y York City’s annual “Song of Myself” Marathon, w which will be held on June 10 this year. According tto Michael Robertson, author of Worshipping Walt, tthe events “are always joyous enactments of Walt Whitman’s central values: democracy, equality, W d diversity, and the pleasures of reading poetry in tthe open air (at least when weather permits).”

THE LOST NOVEL T

Karen Karbiener discusses the 1855 first edition of Leaves of Grass. Photo by Robin Michals.

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W Walt Whitman was in the news earlier this year w when the New York Times reported the finding and p publishing of a lost novel from 1852, Life and A Adventures of Jack Engle (Univ. of Iowa Press $14), r rescued

by Zachary Turpin from the pages of a lo long-forgotten New York newspaper, the sole c copy residing in The Library of Congress.

P Presented for readers of 2017 as “a short, rollicking s story of orphanhood, avarice, and adventure in N New York City,” the 156-page book is an exciting ffind that nevertheless contains only flashes of W Whitman and his city. For one example, this ssummation of the city: “I was happy that I lived in tthis glorious New York, where if one goes without a activity and enjoyment, it must be his own fault in the t main.” Even given the money-making motive, it’s it hard to believe that so stilted, judgmental, and prosaic p a sentence was written by the same man w who breathed life into his city in Leaves of Grass and a Specimen Days.

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Walt Whitman was editor of The Br Brooklyn kl Eagle from 1846 to 1848. At one point, the daily newspaper had the largest daily circulation in the United States.

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Red Bank The City by t he Se a by

Sarah Emily Gilbert

In

the early 1800s, the southern banks of the Navesink River bustled with steamboats, sailboats, and commercial fishermen transporting shellfish and local crops to New York City. In 1908, the area was incorporated into the town of Red Bank, whose name is attributed to the clay found along its coast. Come 2017, you’ll still find sailors and fisherman along these red banks, but you’ll also find young professionals on their way to stand-up paddle yoga. Indeed, some of Red Bank’s 12,200 residents start their day floating on the Navesink River with Flow Paddle Yoga. Others grab a Rook Coffee before walking their dogs past the shops on Broad Street. Many drive fifteen minutes to the

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Atlantic Highlands to catch the Seastreak Ferry to Wall Street. Only five miles inland from the Atlantic Ocean and a 40-minute cruise to New York City, the 1.7-squaremile town of Red Bank offers urban amenities with Jersey Shore sensibilities. This “city-lite” atmosphere attracts its affluent neighbors from Fair Haven; Shrewsbury; Little Silver; Tinton Falls; and Middletown, along with tourists and young people.

Come summertime, the brick streets of Red Bank are alive with people exploring its art scene. On Front Street and West Front Street, you’ll find several antique shops including the Antique Center of Red Bank, which houses over 100 dealers in two warehouses. StreetLife music and entertainment take place in the business district on Saturdays and select Thursdays in June as couples walk to nearby art galleries. An eclectic array of international artwork can be found at the Beacon Fine Arts Gallery and Chetkin Gallery, but strictly local art inhabits the walls at the nonprofit Art Alliance of Monmouth County. At Gotham, a speakeasy-style lounge and gallery, fine art can be savored with a martini until 2 a.m. That allows plenty of time to see a classic or contemporary play at the Two River Theatre that opened in 1994, 68 years after the historic Count Basie Theatre. Named after Red Bank native and jazz great William James “Count” Basie, the theatre brings over 130,000 people to town annually to see big name performers. Along with musicians like Art Garfunkel, Tony Bennett, and Sheryl Crow, the Count Basie hosts locals Bruce Springsteen and Jon Bon Jovi.

If you miss one of Bon Jovi’s performances, you might find him at his community kitchen, JBJ Soul Kitchen, where diners pay a cash-only donation for a meal. Casual dining options continue at Mr. Pizza Slice, Juanito’s, and Good Karma Vegan Café.

For hip eateries, look for the one-word restaurants in town. For happy hour and sushi, it’s Teak; for authentic Italian, it’s Taste; for brunch, it’s Toast; for seafood, it’s Catch; and for seasonal plates, it’s Dish. For a quality beer list, head to The Dublin House or Red Rock Tap + Grill, which has outdoor rooftop dining. For a glass of wine, or sips of many, there’s Faustini Tasting Room and Wine Shop.

The Molly Pitcher Inn offers a taste of history. Along with a dining room overlooking the Navesink River, the 1928 Colonial Revival style hotel has stunning rooms for weddings and other events. The same goes for its luxurious sister hotel, The Oyster Point. The lavishness continues at Garmany, a 40,000-square-foot department store complete with a tailor shop, bar and lounge, and movie theatre.

A 50-foot wall of Valentino, Christian Louboutin, and Jimmy Choo shoes awaits discerning shoppers at CoCo Pari. Equally impressive are the jewels and gems at Tiffany & Co., Leonardo Jewelers, and Goldtinker. Fashion girls head to Dor L’Dor, Cabana 19, Sorella Bella, and Madison to capture that urban-beach look, while their male counterparts shop Carbone’s Clothing Co., Castello, and Urban Outfitters.

Little cuties are welcomed at Lil’ Cutie Pops for all things sweet, including a kids baking club, and furry cuties are embraced at Paws for a Cause. This unique pet shop sells organic treats and toys made out of recycled materials. They only carry products made by small, American businesses, and a portion of their sales go to those who cannot afford pet care.

During the warm weather months, the Jersey Shore takes the stage. Residents can reach the charming beach town of Sea Bright in twenty minutes, or go ten minutes further north to catch some rays at Sandy Hook, which is part of the Gateway National Recreation Area. If they’re looking to stay local, they can rent a rowboat from the Red Bank Marina or drop a line off of Chris’s River Plaza to catch some Navesink Blue Claws. The River Plaza neighbors The Galleria, a 1917 uniform factory that now houses boutiques, restaurants, offices, and over 30 vendors every Sunday at the Red Bank Farmers Market. There’s also the two-acre Riverside Garden Park that won several design awards since its creation in 2000.

Every Thursday night in July and August, crowds are beckoned to Riverside’s Jazz in the Park by the syncopated rhythms of saxophones. On Wednesday evenings, the sounds are more peaceful as yoga or Pilates is taught on the Park’s outdoor stage during Fitness in the Park.

The town keeps the energy alive with events held throughout the summer and into the fall. The five-day Indie Street Festival returns to venues across Red Bank from July 26-30 to provide emerging independent filmmakers industry opportunities, regardless of their budget size. At last year’s inaugural festival, over 75 films were screened, and the winners from each category received a minimum one-week release in New York City. Also in July is the Red Bank Sidewalk Sale, which is followed by the Red Bank Guinness Oyster Festival on September 24, marking summer’s end. As its name suggests, the annual event brings a healthy supply of oysters and beer to the town’s streets, along with music and food from local restaurants.

On rainy days, the Red Bank Armory Ice Complex is available for open skating.

Built in 1914, the armory originally held the National Guard’s Red Bank Calvary, but it’s now home to an ice rink and several local hockey leagues. Pac-Man and Space Invaders are ready to be played at the classic video game arcade, YESTERcades, while adventure awaits at The Trap Door Escape Room. This real-life, interactive game locks a team of people into a room and challenges them to complete a scavenger hunt that uncovers the key to the door.

Luckily, the door is always open in Red Bank. Named the third-best small town in the U.S. by Smithsonian Magazine and “Best Downtown Arts District” by Discover Jersey Arts People’s Choice Awards, it’s clear that this little borough packs a big punch. Located at the intersection of New York City and the Jersey Shore, Red Bank, New Jersey is the summer destination for 2017.

photos courtesy of Red Bank RiverCenter

D e stination:

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QA &

Bruce Grundlock, Royce Brook Golf Club

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oyce Brook Golf Club in Hillsborough features two celebrated golf courses in the heart of Somerset County. An Audubon Sanctuary Course, the vistas range from wetlands to thick forests. Private lesson programs are available with The Royce Brook Academy. Lessons are suited to the individual needs of each player and are taught by PGA golf instructors. Membership at Royce Brook Golf Club includes seven-days-a-week access to the member-only West Course and semi-private East Course, use of a 24acre practice facility, extensive member tournaments, special events, and much more.

Here, General Manager Bruce Grundlock shares some his favorite aspects of the game with Urban Agenda Magazine:

UA: How long have you been playing golf?

BG: I have been playing golf for more than 20 years.

UA: What is your favorite aspect of the game?

BG: That you are your own judge.

UA: What makes your course unique?

BG: The number of bunkers we have on the course.

UA: What is your favorite hole on the course and why?

BG: My favorite is hole number 16, because it has a drivable par 4.

BG: I recommend Titleist equipment.

UA: Have you ever competed professionally?

BG: I have played in mini tours across the United States.

UA: What tips and tricks can you share with readers to help them develop their game?

Royce Brook Golf Club 201 Hamilton Road, Hillsborough, NJ 08844 908.904.0499 | www.roycebrook.com

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BG: The best tip I can give is how to best hit out of the bunkers. Players want to

take their swing path from outside to inside, with an open stance. Most people try to hit a bunker shot with the same swing path and stance as their regular golf swing, but that is incorrect.

IMAGES COURTESY OF ROYCE BROOK GOLF CLUB

UA: What type of equipment do you recommend?

SUMMER 2017

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THIS FALL, THE FAR HILLS CLASS OF 2017 WILL

GO FAR We are honored to share with you the list of secondary schools in which the members of our eighth grade class will enroll in the fall of 2017: Academy of St. Elizabeth's Berkshire School Blair Academy Bridgewater-Raritan High School Choate Rosemary Hall Delbarton School Episcopal High School George School Gill St. Bernard's School Groton School Kent Place School The Lawrenceville School Middlesex School Millbrook School Montclair Kimberley Academy Morristown-Beard School Newark Academy Phillips Academy Andover Phillips Exeter Academy Pingry School Rutgers Preparatory School St. Paul's School Westminster School West Morris Central High School

Didi Far Hills ’17

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Far Hills, NJ | fhcds.org #falconpride

6/2/17 11:29:24 AM

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R I C E A M ’

ST GARDE E I NE L R R A S E

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THE FOUNDING FATHERS PAVED THE WAY FOR A GREEN AMERICA

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White House, south entrance & flower beds. Circa 1907.

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FROM LEFT:

A Rich Spot of Earth by Peter J. Hatch, various seeds from the Center for Historic Plants, Founding Gardeners by Andrea Wulf, All the Presidents’ Gardens by Marta McDowell.

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ardening, it has been said, is one thing we can discuss while setting aside partisan politics—even when it involves the gardening practices of our nation’s political leaders. As garden historian Marta McDowell puts it, “Whether gardeners lean right or left, blue or red, we are united by a love of green-growing things and the land in which they grow.”

McDowell, who gardens and writes in Chatham, New Jersey, traces the story of how the White House grounds were conceived and how they morphed with changing administrations in All the Presidents’ Gardens: Madison’s Cabbages to Kennedy’s Roses—How the White House Grounds Have Grown with America (Timber Press, 2016). We get glimpses into such presidential pastimes as Lincoln’s goats, Ike’s putting green, Jackie’s iconic roses and Amy Carter’s tree house.

When Michelle Obama dug ground for her organic vegetable garden on the White House lawn in 2009, she was raising not only produce for the White House Kitchen and the Food Bank Organization, but also national pride in growing things. The roots of her garden go back to Colonial times. George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison all operated farms, and believed agriculture was the noblest occupation and the foundation of democracy.

During the Revolutionary War, Washington encouraged his troops to eat vegetables and even to plant them if time allowed. While our nation’s early

leaders may have torqued a tendon bending over to seed the fertile earth, their dedication to the soil shaped the way they forged the nation.

In Founding Gardeners: The Revolutionary Generation, Nature and the Shaping of the American Nation (Knopf, 2011), author Andrea Wulf looks at the founding fathers as gardeners, plantsmen and farmers. “Not only did they create the United States in a political sense,” she writes, “they had also understood the importance of nature for their country.”

Gardening, agriculture and botany were passions as deeply ingrained as their belief in liberty for the nation. Wulf reveals how, even as British ships gathered off Staten Island during the Revolution, Washington bombarded the manager of his beloved Mount Vernon with detailed instructions, insisting on prompt replies. If Washington were president today, such gardening correspondence might activate a Twitter storm.

During years of diplomatic service overseas, Adams and Jefferson toured private gardens and studied the latest agricultural techniques. Adams was the first president to live in the White House, then surrounded by mud flats, and Jefferson, focused more on his Monticello gardens than the White House, wanted only native shrubs and trees.

Reasons for gardening during Colonial times were similar to the reasons people garden today: To have a source of fresh produce, to be outdoors, breathing in the fresh air and sunshine, and to experience the simple pleasure of digging one’s hands into the dirt. Martha Washington once wrote that growing vegetables was among “the best parts of living in the country.”

It should be pointed out that none of these gardens would have been possible without the hard work of slaves. In 1799, Mount Vernon was home to a community of 317 enslaved men, women and children. George and Martha Washington relied on enslaved labor to keep their plantation profitable. And at Monticello, about 130 enslaved men, women, and children lived and worked on the plantation, producing cash crops of tobacco and wheat.

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LIVING OFF THE LAND Benjamin Franklin believed agricultural self-sufficiency was vital for the increasingly rebellious colonies. While in London he sent seeds home, not just for the enhancement of his own garden but to be distributed to other Philadelphia plantsmen.

James Madison, Wulf suggests, is the forgotten father of American environmentalism. He sounded the clarion call against the perils of depleting soil by clearing forests and over farming land, urging fellow Virginia farmers to protect the old-growth forests. As president of the Agricultural Society of Albemarle, he made a speech offering advice on how to live off the land without destroying it.

“This was an approach that celebrated the American landscape as it was rather than creating something entirely new and European,” writes Wulf.

Gardens during Colonial times (1600 to 1775) were diverse, varying by geographic area, climate, and economic status and heritage of the owner. Seeds from around the world were mixed in with such native plants as tobacco and corn. Colonists did not develop or use garden plans as landscape designers do today. Most Colonial gardens were small and close to the house, with a walkway (brick, gravel or stone) from the house’s entrance to the center of the garden.

Planting beds could be square, circular or rectangular, and paths forked out from the main walkway. Fruits, herbs, flowers and vegetables were mixed together in beds that were frequently raised and enclosed with either fences or boxwood hedges. Visitors to the gardens at Mount Vernon today can see the ha-ha walls Washington created to separate the working farm from the pleasure grounds.

Washington oversaw all aspects of the landscape at Mount Vernon. He extensively redesigned the grounds surrounding his home, adopting the less formal, more naturalistic style of 18th-century English garden landscape designer Batty Langley. Washington reshaped walks, roads and lawns; cut vistas through the forest, and planted hundreds of native trees and shrubs. The well-ordered

gardens provided food for the mansion’s table and were also pleasing to the eye.

Eighteenth-century visitors to Mount Vernon were treated to bountiful offerings of fresh vegetables and fruits, and reveled in after-dinner walks among opulent flowering plants.

Says Mount Vernon’s Director of Horticulture Dean Norton: “The kitchen garden was the most important garden on any grounds in the 18th century. Ever since this garden was created in 1760 it hasn’t changed, and has generated a lot of fruits, vegetables and berries. The person who had more to do with this garden than George Washington was Martha Washington. One of her main responsibilities was the evening meal. Not only was it supposed to be abundant but elegant, and if not it was a direct reflection on her. She was a keen plants woman.”

Washington was serious about manure, the salvation for soils robbed of their fertility. His interest can be observed in a letter he penned to a friend requesting that he find Washington a farm manager “above all, Midas like, one who can convert everything he touches into manure, as the first transmutation towards gold.”

Were Thomas Jefferson to walk the grounds of Monticello today, he would feel fully at home in the 1,000-foot terraced vegetable garden where the very vegetables and herbs he favored are thriving. The garden is a living expression of Jefferson’s distinctly American attitudes. Its impact on the culinary, garden and landscape history of the United States continues to the present day. Peter J. Hatch, who directed the restoration of the garden, has written A Rich Spot of Earth (Yale University Press, 2012), devoted to all aspects of the Monticello vegetable garden, from the asparagus and artichokes first planted in 1770 through the horticultural experiments of Jefferson’s retirement years (1809–1826). The author explores topics ranging from labor in the garden, garden pests of the time and seed saving practices to contemporary African American gardens. Hatch also discusses Jefferson’s favorite vegetables and the hundreds of varieties he grew, the half-Virginian half-French cuisine he developed, and the gardening traditions he adapted from many other countries.

The Greenhouse at George Washington’s gardens at Mount Vernon.

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Aerial view of the White House, Washington, D.C.

White House, West Colonial Garden (present-day Southwest Rose Garden, which replaced the West Colonial Garden). Circa 1917.

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Monticello is the autobiographical masterpiece of Thomas Jefferson—designed and redesigned and built and rebuilt for more than forty years.

The Vegetable Garden: The 1,000-foot-long garden terrace served as both a source of food and an experimental laboratory at Monticello.

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SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST Morven Museum & Garden, the one-time home of Declaration of Independence signer Richard Stockton, is listed on the New Jersey and National Registers of Historic Places, and is a National Historic Landmark. The grounds can be seen as a patchwork of history. The horse chestnut walk that connects the museum to the Princeton municipal complex is a restoration of one that existed in the late 18th century. The formal front lawn, rimmed by a row of Southern catalpa trees, came to be when the road now known as Stockton Street was straightened over 200 years ago. Disease-resistant American elms, replacements for those lost to Dutch Elm disease at the turn of the 20th century, once again flank the restored horseshoe-shaped drive.

From the vantage point of the back courtyard, a visitor can admire a 19th-century brick wall that divided the pleasure garden from the more utilitarian areas, a Colonial Revival garden that replicates one that Helen Hamilton Shields Stockton grew in 1927, and a recreation area that recalls the 1940s tenancy of Robert Wood Johnson.

For the past five summers, visitors could get a taste of culinary history in Morven’s Kitchen Garden, whose hearty beds featured heirloom and modern varieties of tasty roots and fruits. The robust garden produced hundreds of pounds of food every year that Morven donated to food banks. But just as visitors grew accustomed to the bounty, so did insect pests—cabbage worms and squash bugs—and deer, and so the vegetables will be taking a year off this summer. The good news is, Colonial-era herbs and flowers will be planted in their stead, according to Morven Horticulturist Pam Ruch, who came on board in 2000 and has been through several phases of restoration of the historic property.

“We don’t really know what Richard and Annis Stockton grew,” says Ruch.

“Although Annis may have written about certain plants in her poetry, it’s not necessarily what was grown here. We will be planting what you would have seen during the Colonial period, such as old varieties of zinnias and Maltese cross sunflowers.”

The vegetables had been grown in 16 four-by- 12-foot beds, and these beds, punctuated by an iron sculpture of interlocking circles, will bloom with flowers that attract pollinators. “The food banks like flowers, too,” says garden assistant Nancy Nicosia, who raises the plants from seeds under grow lights. Among her seed sources is Monticello. At press time she was ordering celosia, Love-Lies-Bleeding amaranth, verbena and coneflowers. “Pollinators love it,” she says. Milkweed, the food source for the Monarch butterfly, already grows wild on the beds.

The garden is planned so something will always be blooming, and weeds will be suppressed with mulch—but there’s still plenty of weeding to do, and Morven has a team of 30 volunteers who come to help on Thursdays.

As with all gardens, Morven’s is a place where survival of the fittest can be observed. In August, the blue winged digger wasp pays a visit. The wasp is a parasitoid—unlike a parasite that lets its host live, a parasitoid kills its host.

Sounds nasty, except that the digger wasp’s victim is that notorious garden pest the Japanese beetle. The fierce wasps locate the white beetle grubs beneath the surface of the earth, tunnel through the dirt, deliver a paralyzing sting, and deposit an egg on the skin of the grub. The hapless white grub is incapable of removing the egg which soon hatches and the parasitic larva of the digger wasp slowly consumes its victim. After completing its development during summer and autumn, the wasp larva spins a cocoon of silk, pupates, and passes the winter in the burrow created by the white grub. Fresh, new wasps emerge as adults the following August.

But before you cancel your plans to visit: the digger wasp does not sting.

“Yellow jackets give wasps a bad name,” says Ruch. “Most wasps will sting to defend their territory but are not aggressive and will not chase after you.”

The Colonial Revival garden at Morven Museum & Garden replicates one that Helen Hamilton Shields Stockton grew in 1927. summer 2017

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5/26/17 10:33:42 AM

URBAN BOOKS

The Art and Life of the Landscape, from Cézanne to Capability Brown

by Stuart Mitchner

W

hen the weather was gloomy and the mood was right, I could see a Cézanne painting in our backyard.

This minor miracle was due not to any mortal painter or landscaper but to the mighty forces that formed the Princeton Ridge, which we have been living on for thirty years. Thanks to some long-longago geological turbulence, the makers of the Ridge deposited an immense boulder smack in the middle of the yard, forming a focal point for painterly fantasies. Half a year ago an ash tree was growing out of a cleft in the boulder, creating an effect not unlike the tree-in-rock formation in the right foreground of Cézanne’s Rocks—Forest of Fontainebleau, of which Ernest Hemingway said, “This is what we try to do in writing, this and this, and the woods, and the rocks we have to climb over.”

It was during a 1950 visit to the Metropolitan Museum famously recounted by Lillian Ross in her New Yorker profile that Hemingway delivered his observation about painting and writing. “I can make a landscape like Mr. Paul Cézanne,” he added.

“I learned how to make a landscape from Mr. Paul Cézanne by walking through the Luxembourg Museum a thousand times with an empty gut, and I am pretty sure that if Mr. Paul was around, he would like the way I make them and be happy that I learned it from him.”

That’s my idea of landscaping. A view painted

by Cézanne, described by Hemingway, and with objects in it you can climb over, stand on, or fantasize about. Now that the ash tree has been taken down (the result of age and decay from within), the stump embedded in the boulder has created a new formation, thereby becoming an exciting challenge for our landscaper, who spent time last fall planning ways to work around it.

It’s also only fair that I admit having little interest in landscape gardening or gardens in general. My lack of enthusiasm for planning in nature grows out of an aversion to planning in any form. The sort of landscape I have a special fondness for is English, notably the Bristol Downs that roll green and glorious along the Avon Gorge from Westbury Park and Redland Hill to the Clifton Suspension Bridge. There, you can go from a street of shops and houses right into 400 acres of open country, with rocks to walk over (the way Hemingway likes it), plus fields and copses and cliff-

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side trails and gullies. Second to the Downs in my dream list of landscapes is Hampstead Heath, where you can hike from Keats’s Hampstead to Coleridge’s Highgate and see all the way to Westminster.

LANDSCAPE AS SUSTENANCE In Cézanne: Landscape Into Art (Yale Univ. Press $75), Pavel Machotka photographs sites of Cézanne’s landscape paintings from the same spot, angle, and time of day, whenever possible. Then he juxtaposes the photograph with the painting.

According to Machotka, “the discipline of landscape became Cézanne’s major source of support and sustenance.” As evidence, he quotes from a letter the painter wrote in 1896: “....were it not that I am deeply in love with the landscape of my country I would not be here.”

The sustenance Cézanne found in landscapes, Monet found in his garden at Giverny: “Everyday I discover more and more beautiful things. It’s enough to drive one mad. I have such a desire to do everything, my head is bursting with it.” The quote is from Monet’s Garden: Through the Seasons at Giverny (Frances Lincoln $25.99), a new paperback edition of Vivian Russell’s classic work that compares photographs of the garden with Monet’s paintings of it, as in Garden Path at Giverny. In another quote Monet asks, “How can one live in Paris?...I prefer my flowers and this hill that surrounds the Seine to all your noises and nocturnal nights.”

DOWNTON ABBEY’S LANDSCAPER Sarah Rutherford’s Capability Brown and His Landscape Gardens (National Trust 34.95) traces the life and work of the man they called the “Shakespeare of the art of gardening.” Among his projects was Highclere Castle, the location of the mega-hit series Downton Abbey. He got his colorful name, it’s said,

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6/2/17 12:57:08 PM

from advising people that their grounds had “great capabilities” (meaning potential). Also known as “The Omnipotent Magician,” he had some impressive clients, including half the House of Lords, six Prime Ministers, not to mention royalty. Although he’s now known primarily for his unique name (which has been borrowed by at least one progressive rock group), visitors still enjoy many of his works today at National Trust properties, including countless Downton fans drawn to Highclere; among the others are Croome Park, Petworth, Berrington, Stowe, Wimpole, and Blenheim Palace. Rutherford’s book tells his story, documents his aims, reveals the secrets of his success, and is illustrated throughout with color photographs of contemporary sites, historical paintings and garden plans.

LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTS SPEAK OUT In Meaghan Kombol’s 30:30 Landscape Architecture (Phaidon $75), 30 of the most renowned landscape architects from 20 countries divulge details about their work, including their inspirations and design processes, while debating the key issues for landscape architects today and in the future.

Featuring more than 500 illustrations, 30:30 is an upto-date global overview of contemporary landscape architecture offering students, practitioners and enthusiasts an insightful look at global landscape architecture. Catherine Mosbach, George Hargreaves, Martha Schwartz and Adrian Geuze, along with “the best and brightest” of the next generation of designers, engage with a diverse range of projects, demonstrating both the importance and creativity of landscape architecture.

According to a reviewer in The Garden Design

Journal, 30:30 “is no coffee table book despite its appearance and glamour. It should be read from front to back... As a landscape architect myself, the book makes me proud... After 40 years’ experience, this book motivates me like no other has before. It should be essential reading both in the practice and college environment.”

CITY GARDENS Two new books in the garden/landscape subject area from local publishers are Susan Brownmiller’s My City Highrise Garden (Rutgers Univ. Press $25), and Charles Waldheim’s Landscape as Urbanism (Princeton Univ. Press $45), which presents a powerful case for rethinking the city through landscape, examining works from around the world by designers ranging from Ludwig Hilberseimer, Andrea Branzi, and Frank Lloyd Wright to James Corner and Michael Van Valkenburgh. The result is “the definitive account of an emerging field that is likely to influence the design of cities for decades to come.”

Gardening might seem an unlikely fit for renowned feminist journalist/activist Susan Brownmiller, best known for her 1975 landmark work Against Our Will, but a Library Journal review suggests that the combination works: “Brownmiller writes with passion, humor, and complete candidness about 35 years of gardening on the 20th-floor terrace of her Greenwich Village apartment. Along with weather, climate, and critter issues, Brownmiller also describes unique gardening problems that a more traditional yard gardener couldn’t fathom, such as building renovations and neighbors unappreciative of leaf drift—although plenty of them are eager to share plants and pots for Brownmiller’s urban

oasis, too. From stories of the loss of her beloved birch trees in the wake of a hurricane to tales of victory at her garden’s thrilling achievements, the author reveals all, including the odd assortment of detritus she discovered thrown down from the shared rooftop garden above ... With a style reminiscent of Eric Grissell’s Thyme on My Hands and A Journal in Thyme, Brownmiller’s meandering musings will delight readers. Memoir lovers and gardeners alike will enjoy these adventures in urban gardening.”

PRINCETON GLORIES Having begun in my own backyard, it feels right to end with two favorite places closer to home, Marquand Park, where I first bonded with Princeton, and the Battlefield Park, where nature and history merge.

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Michael Krajewski, Music Director PATRIOTS THEATER AT THE TRENTON WAR MEMORIAL GENERAL ADMISSION TICKET PRICES RANGE $35-$90 GENERAL ADMISSION TICKET PRICES RANGE $35-$90 Call 215-893-1999 or visit www.ticketphiladelphia.org to purchase For more information, please contactPRICES Jane Millner at 609-896-9500, TICKET RANGE $35-$90ext 2215 or jmillner@slrc.org.

TICKET PRICES RANGE $35-$90

ADMISSION Call 215-893-1999 visit www.ticketphiladelphia.org to purchase Call 215-893-1999 ororGENERAL visit www.ticketphiladelphia.org The concert will benefit the patients and residents of St. Lawrence Rehabilitation Centerto andpurchase Morris Hall.

Call 215-893-1999 visit www.ticketphiladelphia.org to purchase Call 215-893-1999 ororvisit www.ticketphiladelphia.org to purchase For more information, please contact Jane Millner at ext 2215 or jmillner@slrc.org.

TICKET PRICES RANGE $35-$90 For more information, please contact Jane Millner at 609-896-9500, 609-896-9500, ext 2215 or jmillner@slrc.org.

Register Today at

For more information, please contact Jane Millner at 609-896-9500, ext 2215 or jmillner@slrc.org.

The concert benefit patients and residents of at St. Lawrence Center Morris Hall. Hall.

For information, please contact Jane Millner ext 2215 or and jmillner@slrc.org.

Themore concert will will benefit thethe patients and residents of St.609-896-9500, LawrenceRehabilitation Rehabilitation Center and Morris

www.campmason.org 908-362-8217

Call orand visit www.ticketphiladelphia.org purchase The concert will 215-893-1999 benefit the patients residents of St. Lawrence Rehabilitation to Center and Morris Hall.

The concert will benefit the patients and residents of St. Lawrence Rehabilitation Center and Morris Hall.

For more information, please contact Jane Millner at 609-896-9500, ext 2215 or jmillner@slrc.org.

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The concert will benefit the patients and residents of St. Lawrence Rehabilitation Center and Morris Hall.

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Doug LeBrecque

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Doug LeBrecque

SUMMER 2017

Michael Krajewski

Dee Roscioli

Christiane Noll

Call 215-893-1999 or visit www

Christiane Noll PATRIOTS THEATER AT THENollTRENTON WAR MEMORIAL Dee Roscioli Christiane

Dee Roscioli Doug LeBrecqueMichael Krajewski Michael Krajewski

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Leading the Way The Seeing Eye, headquartered in Morristown, New Jersey, is changing people’s view of the world.

by Sarah Emily Gilbert | photography courtesy of the seeing eye

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The Seeing Eye takes a photo of each dog as they complete their training. Pictured here is Teddy’s graduation photo.

M

eet Teddy, a five-year-old chocolate golden Labrador. Like most dogs, he loves to run around, greet people, play with fellow pooches, and chew on his bones, but Teddy is far from ordinary; he is a Seeing Eye dog. Teddy has been guiding his owner Jonathan Goodman since December 3, 2014, and in that role, he is more than man’s best friend, he’s his teammate.

Each day, Goodman harnesses up Teddy and the handsome duo embarks on the world. While at work, Teddy displays his impressive skillset such as detecting potholes, finding elevators, and avoiding a car that’s run a stop sign. Simply put by Goodman, “Teddy is a rock star.” Indeed, Teddy is an extraordinary dog, but his rock star status didn’t happen overnight. His abilities are the result of roundthe-clock training, dedication, and love that started the day he was born at The Seeing Eye breeding facility. Teddy and Goodman are one of over 16,000 partnerships between individuals and dogs formed since The Seeing Eye’s incorporation in 1929.

For almost 90 years, The Seeing Eye has bred and trained German shepherds, Labrador retrievers, golden retrievers, and Labrador/golden crosses to help their blind masters be more independent.

As the oldest guide dog school in the world, The Seeing Eye has a reputation of excellence that draws visually impaired students as young as 16 from across the United States and Canada to its Washington Valley headquarters. The 60-acre campus in the heart of Morristown, becomes the temporary home of both the dogs and students in training. Renovated in 2013, the impressive structure houses administrative offices, student residences, and kennels where approximately 250 dogs reside at any given time. For at least four months, the dogs work with a sighted instructor before a cohort of future owners arrives thirteen times a year. For 18 to 25 days, the students and dogs train together before being paired off and sent to their new home.

Jonathan Goodman crosses the street with his Seeing Eye dog, Teddy.

More Than a Buddy On the Morristown Green, a 2.65-acre park at the center of town, you’ll find a statue of The Seeing Eye’s founder, Morris Frank, and his German shepherd, Buddy. As guide dogs in training lead their instructors past the life-sized statue, the townspeople are reminded of the integral role of the organization in the community, as well as its rich history. The roots of the organization date back to 1927, when Frank’s father read him a newspaper article about German shepherds being trained to guide blinded WWI veterans at a school in Switzerland. Having lost his eyesight in two separate childhood accidents, a then 19-year-old Frank was becoming increasingly disgruntled by his hampered independence. The thought of replacing his less than dependable human guide for a loyal canine was motivation enough to leave his home state of Tennessee for a trip abroad.

For a year, Frank worked with the school’s founder, Dorothy Harrison Eustis, a wealthy American trainer residing in Switzerland, and in 1928, he returned to the United States with Buddy.

Upon their return, Frank and his new guide dog were met by a sea of skeptical news reporters daring them to cross a busy intersection in New York City.

As onlookers held their breath, Buddy confidently led Frank across the street, a historic moment that was captured in a famous photograph. This public display marked the country’s slow acceptance of guide dogs, which encouraged Eustis and Frank to co-found The Seeing Eye in Nashville, Tennessee on January 29, 1929. In 1931, the organization was relocated to Whippany, New Jersey, before settling in Morristown in 1965.

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Puppies, Puppies, Puppies Like Buddy, today’s Seeing Eye dogs are part of a lifelong journey that begins on the 330-acre breeding station in Chester, New Jersey, where the Seeing Eye breeds around 60 adult dogs selected by a geneticist for their temperament, trainability, and health. As a result, thousands of highly-coachable and affectionate pups become promising Seeing Eye candidates. At eight weeks old, the puppies are ready for the next phase of the journey, a foster home. For their first year of life, the dogs live with a volunteer puppy raiser, an individual who becomes integral to the dog’s training and development.

“These people teach the dogs their basic obedience and socialize them to different experiences,” explains Master Instructor at The Seeing Eye, Brian McKenna. “The puppy raisers are an important part of the process because, although the instructors do amazing things with our dogs, they couldn’t do it without the puppy raisers. The dogs are too young and small to be a successful guide, and they need that year to grow, mature, and learn.”

Among the 450 generous raisers are Kate and Bob Denby of Skillman. The couple has been involved with The Seeing Eye for fourteen years and has raised several puppies through the organization. Lucky number seven is Dauntless or “Dawn,” a female Labrador retriever that arrived on the Denby’s doorstep in December 2016 at seven weeks old. “Dauntless’s unusual name was selected by a Seeing Eye donor who no doubt gave the privilege of naming a puppy to a fan of the Divergent series,” says Kate, who learned about the program through a teaching colleague that would bring her puppy to class. “One of the five factions is Dauntless, whose defining traits are described in Wikipedia as courageous and brave. It’s no coincidence that The Seeing Eye gave our puppy this name. She is truly dauntless—confident and fearless—nothing phases this little girl!”

Although Kate is retired, raising a puppy is like a fulltime job, especially during the first few months. Still, many of her fellow volunteers work, often with their puppies in tow. One of these individuals commutes on the train to New York City each day; another works in an office in Princeton while her puppy sleeps under her desk. The Denbys know these people through the Mercer County Seeing Eye Puppy Raiser Club, which meets once a month at a local high school. All volunteers are required to join their regional club and attend regular trainings, meetings, and socialization outings. Members of the Mercer County Club often meet-up for group puppy walks, and many local stores in

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Princeton are happy to welcome the dogs. Like Kate and Bob, several members are experienced raisers and dog trainers who are willing to assist others with the rigorous, yet rewarding process. The Seeing Eye puppy development staff and area coordinator are also available 24/7 to support the volunteers.

The role of a puppy raiser is bittersweet because it is temporary. Like all of the puppies, Dawn will return to The Seeing Eye when she is about a year old to resume her training, and hopefully, be matched with a blind master. Although it’s painful to watch the family pup get loaded into the pick-up van for its life as a guide dog, the puppy raisers know it’s for a worthy cause.

“Personally, the way I cope is to remember a heartfelt speech I heard many years ago by a college student who recounted her experience attending college as a freshman with her first guide dog,” recalls Kate. “She thanked all of us puppy raisers for helping to change her life and the lives of other blind men and women. However, the best way to cope for many puppy raisers is to get another puppy!” Kate is also motivated by the satisfaction she receives from hearing of her former puppies’ successes as guide dogs. One of them is living with a retired man who plans to hike the Appalachian Trail with his dog. “When I think of all the long walks I took his dog on as a puppy, it warms my heart to think of him alongside his new owner, guiding him in the great outdoors,” says Kate.

Matchmakers Once Dawn and the other puppies are at the Morristown campus, they are matched with instructors for their formal guide training. Brian McKenna explains that the instructors teach a dog each facet of their job by showing them what they want, and praising the dog for doing it. These repeated actions soon become learned behaviors. However, it’s The Seeing Eye dogs’ ability to ignore commands that make them extraordinary. “We strategically place the dogs in positions where they cannot obey a given command, and we praise them for ignoring the said command,” McKenna explains. “In time, they learn this skill, which we call intelligent disobedience because they are intelligently disobeying a command. Examples of this would be disobeying a command to guide towards the platform edge at a train station, or into a steady stream of traffic.”

This difficult craft is hard to master, and 40 percent of the dogs are unable to complete the training. In this case, they often go on to work in law enforcement,

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Bob Denby at MarketFair Mall with his Seeing Eye dogs.

Yvonne Quinn (left) and Kate Denby with their dogs at Princeton Shopping Center.

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Pups at a Princeton University basketball game.

search and rescue, or similar professions. The dogs can also become their puppy raiser’s family pet. Those that meet the challenge go on to work with the blind students who temporarily reside on campus for four weeks to learn how to adjust to life with their guide dog. The pairing off of handlers and dogs is an extensive process spearheaded by the instructors. They interview each student to understand their individual needs, including their activity level, what kind of area they live in, and what they do for work. They also go on a “Juno walk,” where the instructor holds on to one end of the harness and guides the student as they hold on to the other end. By simulating the role of the Seeing Eye dog, the instructors can evaluate the students’ walking pace and the strength of pull they’re comfortable following. The instructor considers all these variables in order to select the best-suited dog for each student—a crucial moment in the training process.

“We attempt to make the most perfect match we can for each individual student,” says McKenna. “The perfect dog for one person is not perfect for another. The bond between the dog and student is not immediate. It takes time, respect, and patience for the two to become a team.”

The students spend as much time as possible with their new Seeing Eye dog. Several times a day they go on trips throughout Morristown and take rides on busses and trains. Towards the end of their stay, the pairs head to New York City, just like Frank Morris and Buddy. “[While still on campus,] we learn to brush the dogs, clean their teeth and ears, and feed and clean up after them. All of this is so important because the dogs learn to love and depend on us as much as we do on them,” explains Goodman, who’s undergone instruction on the Morristown campus with all four of his guide dogs. Goodman agrees that the adjustment to the dog takes time, especially when a graduate is returning for a new dog. “As a graduate, you could have worked successfully with your last guide for ten years, and you’re starting all over with a new partner,” he says. “You have to let go of all the things you knew from your previous guide, and give your best to your new partnership for it to work.”

The Dream Team Goodman’s current partnership with Teddy certainly works. The two live in Somerdale, and head to Mount Laurel each day for Goodman’s position as the business development specialist at TD Bank. Teddy also tags along on a monthly

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trip to North Jersey for a mentoring program Goodman is involved with, but having a Seeing Eye dog and traveling with one is a choice. As Goodman explains, “I use a cane when I have to, but I prefer to travel with a dog. I live a much more independent quality of life because of my dog. I can travel with others or alone, and I do it safely and confidently. I also feel that traveling with a Seeing Eye dog is a more dignified way to get through life.”

When Teddy is wearing his harness, he knows he’s at work and should be focused on Goodman. When his harness comes off, he knows it’s time to relax.

At home, Teddy is a normal dog romping around with Goodman’s Greyhound and two cats, but whenever he sees his harness, his tail is wagging and he’s is eager to get to work. “When I am at home and Teddy doesn’t have to be with me, he follows me everywhere both to check on me and because he wants to be where I am,” says Goodman. “That’s how I know Teddy and I are a team.”

After eight to ten years of work, it’s time for The Seeing Eye dogs to retire, marking the last leg of their powerful journey. If their situation allows, a handler can keep their dog as a pet or re-home them to a friend of relative. Otherwise, the dogs return to Morristown where the organization will adopt them out to one of the loving families on The Seeing Eye’s public adoption waiting list, which ranges from one to four years. Through tremendous funding efforts, The Seeing Eye is able to send their dogs on this lifelong and life-changing quest.

For eight years of work, the partnership between a dog and a graduate costs approximately $64,000, but the handlers pay $1 to $150 for the entire service.

Dog owners often describe their canine’s “look of love,” that soulful gaze that solidifies the bond between dog and human. For Dawn, Teddy, and the 500 puppies born into The Seeing Eye program each year, that look of love is crucial to their role as guide dogs. “I feel better about myself when I walk with my guides,” says Goodman. “I know that can be seen and felt by all who see us together. I can feel Teddy thinking as he guides me. I can feel his eyes on me, making sure I’m all right.”

To donate to The Seeing Eye, visit: www.seeingeye.org/donate.html For more information on the nonprofit organization, call 973.539.4425 or email info@SeeingEye.org. You can also follow The Seeing Eye online at www.SeeingEye.org, www.facebook.com/SeeingEye, or www.twitter.com/ SeeingEyeInc.

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5/26/17 3:19:48 PM

New Princeton store Now at Market Fair Mall

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In the Pinelands N

I

turned off Route 206 and wound my way southeast toward Chatsworth, in the heart of cranberry country. Within a few miles, the farmland—acre upon acre of wheat and corn—was swallowed up by thick forest. A few miles further, the maples, oaks, and sassafras trees that form so much of the state’s deciduous canopy yielded almost entirely to pitch pines and shortleaf pines. The road became an evergreen-lined alley stretching out into the flat distance, where heat waves shimmered above the asphalt — looking for all the world as though the Atlantic had crept some twenty miles inland of its usual home along the Jersey Shore. The drive continued this way for some time, punctuated by the the occasional bog, until I arrived — almost without warning — in the middle of Chatsworth.

At the end of the Gilded Age, Chatsworth enjoyed a brief heyday as a retreat for country’s upper crust. The short-lived Chatsworth Club, established in 1904 by the Italian prince and diplomat Mario Ruspoli, included among its roster members of the Drexel, Astor, Vanderbilt, and Gould families. The town was well-connected by train, with lines leading west to Philadelphia, east to Atlantic City, and north to Red Bank and New York City.

Beginning in 1929, the Blue Comet passed through Chatsworth each day on its route between Jersey City and Atlantic City, its riders lounging on the deck of its observation car or enjoying a steak dinner in its wood-paneled dining car.

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But I hadn’t come to Chatsworth to track down traces of that genteel past. I was there because, just over 50 years earlier, John McPhee had used the town as a sort of base of operations as he researched the region for a pair of New Yorker articles that would eventually become his beloved 1968 book The Pine Barrens.

What is now officially designated as the Pinelands National Reserve is comprised of 1.1 million acres—fully a fifth of the state’s land area, and the first National Reserve in the country. Within that region is the largest surviving forest on the East Coast between Maine and Florida, and below it lies the 17-trillion-gallon Kirkwood-Cohansey aquifer. The “Pine Barrens” are so called because early European settlers found the region’s sandy acidic soil unsuitable for the vegetables and cereals they wanted to cultivate, but in terms of ecology, the Pinelands are hardly barren. According to the Pinelands Preservation Alliance, the area’s forests and wetlands are home to 1,000 species of native flowering plants, 280 mosses, 34 mammal species (including black bears and bobcats), 24 amphibian species, 30 reptile species, and 144 bird species.

“I was in the pines because I found it hard to believe that so much wilderness could still exist so near the big Eastern cities,” McPhee writes in his book. And indeed, even for many Garden State natives, the Pine Barrens are now what they were initially for McPhee then: an enormous blank spot on the map of the state, passed

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National Reserve

by Doug Wallack

over as the eye is drawn almost inexorably toward New York or Philadelphia — or perhaps to the shore, depending on the season. When the idea of writing on the Pines struck, McPhee was 33 and had lived nearly his entire life in New Jersey. After publishing a breakout New Yorker profile on Bill Bradley (then a star basketball player at Princeton University), McPhee, then nominally a staff writer for the magazine, was camped out in his garage in Princeton, wracking his brain for his next story. Then, as he related by phone, “When a high school friend of mine said, ‘You ought to write about the Pine Barrens,’ I said, ‘The what?’” His friend relayed fantastic rumors about the region, including word of a mile-deep hole in the ground there. His interest piqued, McPhee drove his Peugeot (“which the sand roads destroyed”) down to the Pines, often hanging around Buzby’s General Store in Chatsworth, talking with the townspeople and the cranberry growers and fire watchers who filtered through, tagging along with them when he could to see their view of the Pines.

What he ultimately wrote was a rich portrait of the region that followed a small cast of characters, exploring the culture, history, and ecology of the Pines. In the book, McPhee passes time with “pineys” — as Pine Barrens natives call themselves — who work the cranberry bogs and blueberry fields, trading the security of year-round work for the peace of living in the woods. He delves into the history of the iron

industry that came and went in the Pines, visiting the remnants of the towns that disappeared along with the forges. Guided by botanists, naturalists, and locals, he meditates on the diversity of the region’s fauna and flora, the centrality of forest fires (both man-made and natural) to the pace of life there and to the woods’ ecosystems, and the threat mankind poses to wilderness there.

McPhee reports that there were plans afoot to build a new city in the heart of the Pines, along with a supersonic jetport that would be, by far, the largest airport on earth.

The Pine Barrens concludes on a grim note: “Given the great numbers and the crossed purposes of all the big and little powers that would have to work together to accomplish anything on a major scale in the pines, it would appear that the Pine Barrens are not very likely to be the subject of dramatic decrees or acts of legislation.

They seem to be headed slowly toward extinction,” McPhee writes.

But as it turned out, a decade after the book’s publication, New Jersey Governor Brendan Byrne began a push for exactly that sort of major legislation, which resulted in the state’s adoption of the Pinelands Protection Act in 1979. Fittingly, it was McPhee’s book that—at least in part—inspired Governor Byrne to pursue to the legislation. Now, as a result of the Pinelands Preservation Act and the accompanying Pinelands Comprehensive Management Plan, roughly two-

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RYAN HARAN/FLICKR

WIKIMEDIA COMMONS PETER MASSAS/FLICKR

Sarracenia purpurea, a carnivorous pitcher plant found in the Pine Barrens.

Apple Pie Hill Fire Tower—The highest point in the Pine Barrens of central New Jersey is Apple Pie Hill, only 200 feet above sea level.

IMAGE COURTESY OF SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

Great Blue Heron

Harvesting cranberries in a bog.

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IMAGE COURTESY OF SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

thirds of the Pinelands are protected from intensive development, with onethird designated for closely-monitored suburban and urban development, and a sliver zoned for agriculture. The airport jetport and the new city never materialized. McPhee now marvels that “not a great deal has changed” since he first went down to the Pines.

Even with these laws on the books, he is clear in his conviction that the Pines are still “forever threatened.” According to Carleton Montgomery, executive director of the Pinelands Preservation Alliance, the region is made vulnerable by the possibility that the Pinelands Commission—the state agency established to enforce the Pinelands legislation—will fail to do its job. One of Montgomery’s chief concerns is aquifer overuse. The state is required to update the Water Supply Master Plan every five years, but the last revision was released in 1996—a failure that Montgomery says makes it impossible to draft appropriate regulations for water extraction, given the population changes over the last two decades.

The Pines also face the construction of natural gas pipelines running through conservation zones. Part of the concern, of course, is of contamination in the event of pipeline leakage or rupture. But the larger concern, Montgomery explains, is that the pipelines would serve as a foot in the door for developers. “Where you build infrastructure, people come,” he says, “And then it becomes a reason to change the rules and expand development opportunities in those conservation zones.” In February, despite the efforts of the Pinelands Preservation Alliance and many other environmental groups and concerned citizens, the Pinelands Commission approved the construction of a 22-mile South Jersey gas pipeline through the Pinelands.

In recent years, the Pines have also contended with increasing damage to conservation lands from off-road vehicles. “We attribute this to YouTube,” Montgomery says. GoPro footage of wild rides through the forests has popularized the practice, even as riders tear up the very terrain they’re so enamored of.

Still, the Pines are more than the sum of their worries. Both the beauty of the region and the rumors that cling to it continue to draw people in.

David Scott Kessler, a Philadelphia-based artist and filmmaker, is one of the latest to fall under their spell. Kessler has been working on an experimental

documentary entitled The Pine Barrens since 2011. Though film is not yet finalized, over the past few years, Kessler has screened versions of it accompanied by live music from the Ruins of Friendship orchestra (a group that came together to support the film). The shared name with McPhee’s book is apt. Both works are essentially exploratory in character, investigations

by New Jersey natives (Kessler is originally from Union) who were drawn to learn something more about their home state, to prod at the sense of mystery that surrounds the Pines—home of the Jersey Devil and reclusive pineys. Kessler says he was keen to bring to the screen the sense of wonder that comes with the “naïve explorer sensibility” he had from the outset of his project. The story he tells—which is far more a subjective portrait of a time and place than it is an environmental documentary—developed as he worked on it. His work continues, and so too does the story of the Pines itself continue to unfold.

Today, Chatsworth is in many ways much like it was when McPhee first visited it in 1966: a sleepy village in the Pines, home to a few hundred families, and a hub of regional cranberry growing activity. Buzby’s General Store still stands where it has for over 150 years, but it has been closed for about a year now due to the poor health of current owner R. Marilyn Schmidt. A real estate agent’s sign sits in the window — a melancholy frame to the books, maps, and jars of jam still sitting inside. As I was about to leave town, my phone — and with it Google Maps — died suddenly and would not be revived. So I drove home through the Pines as McPhee had when he was first exploring the area: overshooting a turn here and there, retracing my route, meandering, but sure to return.

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The Pine Barrens tree frog, Hyla andersonii

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PHOTOS COURTESY OF ESSEX COUNTY A sea lion swims in the Sea Lion Sound exhibit at Essex County Turtle Back Zoo.

One of the giraffes in the African Adventure exhibit at Turtle Back Zoo.

A black dragon monitor lizard found in the Reptile House at Essex County Turtle Back Zoo.

Turtle Back Zoo Discover the “world in your backyard” at Essex County Turtle Back Zoo, which offers a look at more than 120 different species of native and exotic animals from five continents.

L

ocated in West Orange, N.J., Turtle Back Zoo is committed to providing an enriching recreational experience that fosters excellence in wildlife education and wildlife conservation, so that present and future generations are inspired to understand, appreciate, and protect the fragile interdependence of all living things.

The zoo features a wide variety of themed areas including African Adventure, Sea Turtle Recovery, Sea Lion Sound, Touch Tank, Amazing Asia, Penguin Coast, Big Cat Country, Wolf Woods, Reptile House and Wild New Jersey.

Other attractions include a Treetop Adventure Course, Miniature Train, Prehistoric Playground, Pony Rides, an Endangered Species Carousel and Butterfly Tent.

Turtle Back Zoo also offers a variety of educational programs, including week-long summer camps for children entering kindergarten and grades

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1-8. Campers will be introduced to the extraordinary world of animals, nature, and science, and enjoy age-appropriate themed camps that include games, teacher-led lessons, behind-the-scenes visits, up-close animal encounters, hands-on science, and fun crafts.

Turtle Back Zoo is a facility of the Essex County Parks Department and is funded by the County of Essex as a service to the residents of the county and the surrounding areas. The Zoological Society of NJ, Inc., the fundraising branch of Turtle Back Zoo, is a nonprofit organization that helps to raise funds for improvements to Turtle Back Zoo. The zoo is accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, which places it among the elite zoos and aquaria of the United States and means that it adheres to the highest standards for zoos in the country.

Essex County Turtle Back Zoo is located at 560 Northfield Avenue in West Orange. It is open daily from 10AM to 4:30PM. For more information, call 973.731.5800 or visit the website at www.essexcountynj.org/turtlebackzoo.

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Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area

New Jersey’s National Parks: No More Reason Not To Go

by Wendy Plump

On a recent train ride home from Boston, surrounded by people tapping at computers and staring into cell phones, as well as my own pile of devices, the meaning of serenity asserted itself. It wasn’t gained by answering emails or texts or squinting through news feeds, but by looking out the window at miles and miles of wild coastline and coves, a great gray ocean, and a marbled sky. Every seabird scratching in the sand or stand of evergreens leaning out of the wind served to remind me that this is what saves.

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Appalachian Trail National Scenic Trail

images courtesy of shutterstock.com

Sandy Hook Light at Sandy Hook/Gateway National Recreation Area

Lower Delaware National Wild and Scenic River

N

ew Jersey is a populous state: people, cities, turnpikes, superfund sites.

Mercifully, there is remedy in the form of stunning natural beauty to restore equanimity. To be specific, 12 remedies. Parks, trails, or sites overseen by or considered part of the National Park Service grace the Garden State from stem to stern. You own these places by virtue of your tax dollars and those forward-thinking souls who packaged the parks up neatly for us after the Organic Act—which created the National Park Service—passed in 1916. Given the political climate, it seems as good a time as any to remind us what that Act sought to do: “… to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wildlife therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.”

a mile to the top on one of two trails. And when you get up there, you have views of Arrowhead Island and Mt. Minsi on the Pennsylvania side and a reminder that, as primates, we were born to climb.

Ellis Island, Part of the Statute of Liberty National Monument More than 12 million steerage and third-class steamship passengers who came to the United States through the New York port were legally and medically inspected here between 1892 and 1954. The National Park Service estimates that some 40 percent of America’s population can trace their ancestry through Ellis Island. Walk around the park and imagine what it was like to land here, the welcoming portal to a (hopefully) kinder nation. The Ellis Island Museum of Immigration has three floors of history, and photographs that will make you yearn for your forebears.

Sandy Hook/Gateway National Recreation Area With 27,000 acres along the ocean, including bays in New Jersey, Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island, the Gateway allows New Jersey to lay claim to just a small piece of this national recreation area: Sandy Hook in Monmouth County. A 2,044-acre barrier beach peninsula at the northern tip of the Jersey Shore, Sandy Hook offers seven miles of beaches, salt marshes, hiking trails, a maritime holly forest, and Sandy Hook Lighthouse. In comparison with the rest of the Gateway, it’s vest-pocket small. But we’ll take it.

Here is the list of New Jersey’s 12 National Park Service gems. It’s summer. Get out there. Check them all off your list. And while I’m not suggesting you actually do this, imagine how emancipating it would be to throw your cell phones out the car window on the way to the Pine Barrens. They would be covered with sand in under a week.

Appalachian Trail National Scenic Trail The 2,180-mile Appalachian Trail, also known as the Footpath of the People, passes through New Jersey for 72 miles from the Delaware Water Gap to High Point State Park, and on into New York. Elevation ranges from 350 feet to 1,685 feet in a series of short, steep, rocky pitches alternating with bogs and wetlands. Rated easy to moderate within the Garden State, the AT enters New Jersey at the Delaware Water Gap, heads north along the Kittatinny Ridge to High Point, then east through Pochuck Valley. It would take an estimated five to six days to walk the New Jersey section. Wildlife is abundant with hawks and eagles, bears, rattlesnakes, and passerines galore.

Great Egg Harbor River This 129-mile river system in the Pinelands starts from a trickle in Berlin and blossoms and blooms all the way down to the Atlantic Ocean. The system pulls water from 17 tributaries along its length, and nearly all of it lies within the Pinelands National Reserve. Local jurisdictions continue to administer the lands, a unique feature of this wet and wild place. With an abundance of waterfowl nesting groups, the river system is one of the great birdwatching sites on the East Coast. Backpacking and hiking, boating, camping, and kayaking are also rewarding. The NPS website points out that there are two components to the river system: sand and water.

The sand was deposited by an ancient river 20 million years ago.

The water seeps through the sand to form one of North America’s largest underground reservoirs.

Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area This National Park Service distinction is shared with Pennsylvania, which borders the other side of the Delaware River. It seems silly to list the outdoor activities you can undertake in the Water Gap: what can’t you do with 70,000 acres of breathtaking scenery, 40 miles of river, and 100 miles of scenic roadway? One of the most popular hikes in New Jersey is the divine slog up Mt. Tammany, 1,527 feet high, about

The Statute of Liberty National Monument on Ellis Island. summer 2017

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image courtesy of emily reeves

Paterson Great Falls National Historical Park

Re-enactors at Princeton Battlefield State Park, part of Washington-Rochambeau National Historic Trail

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images courtesy of shutterstock.com Pinelands National Reserve

Thomas Edison’s home, Glenmont

Lower Delaware National Wild and Scenic River The Lower “D” became part of the park service in 2000. From the headwaters in Hancock, N.Y. down to Delaware Bay, the Delaware is the largest free-flowing river in the eastern United States, although just the Water Gap to Washington Crossing has been designated New Jersey’s portion of the wild and scenic river. After the hiking and the boating and the walks along the Delaware and Raritan Canal, the river towns along its banks prove that river residents in Milford, Frenchtown, Stockton, and Lambertville are a thriving breed apart, and just may deserve a wild and scenic designation of their own.

Morristown National Historical Park This is the nation’s first National Historic Park and commemorates the encampment of General George Washington and the Continental Army from December 1779 to June of 1780, one of the coldest, most brutal winters on record. Four historical sites comprise the park: Jockey Hollow, the Ford Mansion, Fort Nonsense, and the New Jersey Brigade Encampment site. The park hosts an annual encampment weekend each spring. A museum and library collection round out the offerings.

New Jersey Coastal Heritage Trail This is a part-and-parcel trail stretching 300 miles through the shore with historic villages, boardwalks, and lighthouses scattered along the way. From Raritan Bay in Perth Amboy to Deepwater near the Delaware Memorial Bridge, the heritage trail runs through five regions and includes one of the nation’s oldest operating lighthouses, the state’s official tall ship, and the town where revolutionaries burned British tea.

Pinelands National Reserve More than a million acres of forests, wetlands, and farms span seven southern counties to form the Pinelands. The area has been classified as a biosphere reserve (there are under 50 in the United States) and, in 1978, was named the country’s first National Reserve. While it contains 56 communities, from hamlets

to suburbs, with 700,000 permanent residents, the Pinelands also enclose some of southern New Jersey’s wildest environs.

Paterson Great Falls National Historical Park The newest national park for New Jersey—and slightly at-odds with the others’ emphasis on natural beauty—this park commemorates an industrial historic district, once called the Cradle of American Industry. Everything from cotton and silk, to locomotives, to paper, airplanes, and all manner of widgets were produced here. Paterson was America’s first planned industrial city, centered around and in part fueled by the Great Falls of the Passaic River, standing at 77 feet high. A lovely footbridge spans the Passaic. Walk over it for a good misting.

Thomas Edison National Historic Park This is the West Orange home of America’s greatest inventor, where the machines and pulleys of his laboratory, once active for 40 years, are still on view. Edison earned 1,093 patents, but his three most famous inventions were the electric light system, the phonograph, and motion pictures. While it is not quite true that he invented the lightbulb, it is true that he perfected the first practical incandescent lightbulb; his applied invention enabled it to burn for hours and hours. His home, Glenmont, which he purchased in 1886 with his wife Mina for their family, is huge and every bit as whimsical-looking as we could wish.

Washington-Rochambeau National Historic Trail General George Washington and General Rochambeau joined the fighting men of the Continental Army and the French expeditionary force in 1781 to defeat the British, marching from New York to Virginia where they trapped the British Army under the command of General Cornwallis. Their famous collaboration resulted in the victory at Yorktown in the largest troop movement of the Revolutionary War. In 2009, their route was designated a National Historic Trail. As it runs through New Jersey, the route takes in the Thomas Clarke House in Princeton Battlefield State Park.

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calendar highlights Saturday, June 10

Friday, June 16

Wednesday, June 21

Early Summer Flea Market at Historic Allaire Village in Wall Township. www.allairevillage.org

Camel Rides at Turtle Back Zoo in West Orange, NJ (repeats throughout the summer). www.turtlebackzoo.com

Join other yogis for yoga in Times Square to celebrate the Summer Solstice. www.timessquarenyc.org

Visit Abma’s Farm, Market, and Greenhouse in Wycoff. Nine decades and four generations later, Abma’s Farm is still Bergen County’s only produce and poultry farm (open all year). www. abmasfarm.com

Diana Krall brings her 2017-18 World Tour to NJPAC in Newark in support of her highly anticipated new album, Turn Up the Quiet. www.njpac.org

Opening Night for The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream on the Outdoor Stage in Madison (through July 30). www.shakespearenj.org

Everyone is welcome to workout with Gold’s Gym at The Annual Gold’s Gym Boardwalk Workout at Pier Village in Long Branch. www.piervillage.com

Sunday, June 11 Shakespeare in the Park presents Julius Caesar (through June 18). www.publictheater.org Hoboken Spring Arts & Music Festival in downtown Hoboken, NJ www. hobokennj.org

Start of New York City Pride Week with The Rally at Foley Square (through June 25) www.nycpride.org

Saturday, June 17 New York Road Runners Queens 10K (part of the NYRR Five-Borough Series). www.nyrr.org

Thursday, June 22 Downtown Westfield, NJ Sidewalk Sale Days (through June 25). www.westfieldtoday.com

Saturday, June 24 Ladies Tennis Outing at Center Court Academy in Chatham, NJ. www. centercourtacademy.com Prospect Park in Brooklyn is hosting a massive dinner party for the community at the Peninsula. www.prospectpark.org

Thursday, June 29 Free outdoor concert featuring The Weeklings at Pier Village in Long Branch. www.piervillage.com

Sunday, July 2 The New Jersey Symphony Orchestra is coming to Marine Park in Red Bank for a free concert. www. redbank.org

The sidewalks of Red Bank will be alive with music and entertainment every Saturday in June, July, and August.

Come stroll through town and enjoy the music! www.redbank.org

june 16

june 17

july 4

june 17

june

Sunday, June 18

Wednesday, June 14

Monday, June 19

An Evening of Memoir at Watchung Booksellers in Montclair featuring authors Rika Kreiter, Cindi Michael, and Koni Beth Tower. www. watchungbooksellers.com

More than 1,500 runners are expected to participate in the President’s Cup Night Race in downtown Millburn, NJ. www. downtownmillburn.org

Thursday, June 17 Neil Diamond’s 50 year anniversary world tour hits Madison Square Garden. www.thegarden.com

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Last chance to see “Matisse and American Art” on view at Montclair Art Museum. www.montclairartmuseum.org

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Tuesday, June 20 Enjoy the freshness at the Downtown Millburn Farmers Market, every Tuesday through October 31. www. downtownmillburn.org

june 21

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Tuesday, July 4

Wednesday, July 26

Wednesday, August 16

Art Exhibits:

Long Branch’s Annual OceanFest & Fireworks to celebrate the July Fourth holiday. www.oceanfestnj.com

Downtown Westfield, NJ 5K and Pizza Extravaganza. www.westfieldtoday.com

Two music legends, Stephen Stills and Judy Collins will debut songs from their upcoming album at the Count Basie Theatre in Red Bank, NJ. www. countbasietheatre.org

“Hypermobility” Whitney Museum of American Art

Saturday, July 7 Country icon Zac Brown Band performs live at the PNC Bank Arts Center in Holmdel. www.banksartscentre.com

Thursday, July 13 Comedian Jerry Seinfeld performs at the Beacon Theatre. www. beacontheatre. com MetLife Stadium Wedding Expo.

Wedding vendors of all kind will be in attendance along with great deals on their services. All future brides and grooms welcomed. www.americanbride.com

The Indie Street Film Festival at Count Basie Theatre in Red Bank includes screenings of more than 75 different independent and short films (through July 30). www.redbank.org

Friday, July 28 Red Bank’s greatest retailers take to the sidewalk during the annual Sidewalk Sale. Find the best deals of the season as you stroll through town and enjoy the beautiful scenery (through July 30). www.redbank.org

Friday, August 18 Juried Art Show begins in Montauk (through August 20). www. montaukartistassociation.org

“American Visionary: John F. Kennedy’s Life and Times” The New-York Historical Society “Georgia O’Keeffe: Living Modern” Brooklyn Museum “Frank Lloyd Wright at 150: Unpacking the Archive” The Metropolitan Museum of Art “Rhythm and Power: Salsa in New York” The Museum of the City of New York “Inside You” American Museum of Natural History “The Lavender Line: Coming Out in Queens” Queens Museum of Art “Esperanza Spalding Selects” Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum

july 26

“The World is Sound” The Rubin Museum

june 16

august 14

Sunday, July 16 Private Registry Event at the Crate & Barrel at The Mall at Short Hills. Have the store all to yourself as you get inside tips from registry experts, mingle with other couples, and celebrate with food, drinks, and fun. www.shopshorthills.com Movies at the Pier in Long Branch presents a free screening of Ghostbusters (2016). www.piervillage.com

Tuesday, July 25 Hall of Fame catcher Ivan Rodriguez reads from and signs copies of his latest book, They Call Me Pudge: My Life Playing the Game I Love at Bookends Bookstore in Ridgewood. www.book-ends.com

Tuesday, August 1 Sweet Sounds Downtown Jazz Festival in Westfield, NJ (every Tuesday night throughout August). www.westfieldtoday.com

Tuesday, August 8

Saturday, August 19

Gordon Lightfoot in concert at Bergen Performing Arts Center in Englewood. www.bergenpac.org

Vintage North Jersey Wine & Food Festival hosted by Four Sisters Winery in Warren County (through August 20). www.vintagenorthjersey.com

Monday, August 14

Sunday, August 27

Alexander Calder, Dancers and Sphere set in motion in Calder’s “small shop” New York City storefront studio, 1938.

The New York Yankees face off against the New York Mets at Yankee Stadium. www.newyork.yankees.mlb.com

The first day of the annual Hampton Classic (through September 3) www.hamptonclassic.com

© 2017 Calder Foundation, New York/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photograph by Herbert Matter, courtesy Calder Foundation, New York.

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august

august 27

“Hypermobility” Whitney Museum of American Art

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Newark and the Culture of Art: 1900-1960 Opens June 16, 2017

Windy Night, Newark, 1917. Stuart Davis (1892 - 1964). Private Collection. © Christie’s Images Limited 2010

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Sponsored by Pheasant Hill Foundation • Liza and Schuyler Morehouse • Kalkin Family Foundation The exhibit is also supported in part by a grant from the New Jersey Department of State, Division of Travel & Tourism

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6/2/17 11:21:54 AM

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