All photography provided by the Friends of Watsessing Park Conservancy

Watsessing Park is a park in Essex County, New Jersey, in the city of East Orange and the town of Bloomfield. The park covers 69 acres (279,000 m²), just west of the Garden State Parkway, and contains the confluence of the Second River and Toney's Brook.

The name "Watsessing" comes from the language of the Lenni Lenape Indians who inhabited the area before European colonization; it means "crooked" or "elbow". This etymology might have been related to the Third River, which also flows through Bloomfield (though not through Watsessing Park), and which forms an abrupt elbow near the town's center.

Watsessing Park was designed in 1899 by the famous Olmsted Brothers of Brookline, Massachusetts (sons of Frederick Law Olmsted, designer of Manhattan's Central Park)

 

Our Mission

This group brings together and mobilizes the community to work on preserving and enhancing beautiful Watsessing Park located in Bloomfield and East Orange, New Jersey. Anyone with an interest in working towards these efforts is welcome to join. We encourage participants to keep their comments focused on action oriented and positive steps that the group can work on together. If you'd like to be on an email list that receives regular updates on our work and opportunities to actively engage in these efforts please email us at: Watsessingpark@gmail.com.


“The earth laughs in flowers.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson