County Completes Round of Improvements at Branch Brook Park

The second phase of renovations to Branch Brook Park were completed earlier this month, with the latest round of improvements involving the Clifton Avenue entrance near the Cathedral Basilica, Essex County Executive Joseph DiVincenzo announced.

Partnering with the Branch Brook Park Alliance, La Casa de Don Pedro and The North Ward Center, the upgrades are part of a comprehensive initiative by Essex County to revitalize Branch Brook Park, the first county park created in the United States.

"Located at one of the busiest entranceways to Branch Brook Park, Concourse Hill has been underutilized and has untapped potential for public recreation. The work just completed in Phase 2 stabilizes the site and

provides enhanced access to Concourse Hill," DiVincenzo said. "This is just another project benefitting the public that was made possible through our partnership with the Branch Brook Park Alliance.

“Their stewardship of Branch Brook has made the park's revitalization possible," he added.

In the second phase that was just completed, two bluestone staircases were built leading from Clifton Avenue to the top of Concourse Hill, the hill that is located between the Clifton Avenue entrance to the park and the cathedral. Previously, a staircase rose just partway up the hill and connected to a slow rising pathway along the hill's surface. Other upgrades include the installation of a bluestone sidewalk, walking paths inside the park, ornamental steel fencing, two ornamental light fixtures at the intersection of Clifton Avenue and Victoria Avenue, additional landscaping and irrigation, benches and trash receptacles. This phase was started in November 2012 and was completed in nine months.

"This makes a more inviting entrance to Branch Brook Park and, when the third phase is completed, there will be a welcome center that highlights all the attributes of the Essex County Park System," Branch Brook Park Alliance Co-President Barbara Bell Coleman said. "This is turning an unattractive, inactive site into an area for public use," she said.