(The Nutley Sun, Jan. 3, 1974) --THE ENCLOSURE: Nutleyâs most history-filled street, The Enclosure, first popped into the news in 1973 in mid- July when Commissioner John Lucy proposed âImprovingâ thatâ street by adding a new sewage system Lucy also asked to construct sidewalks and curbs and widen the roadway to 30 feet.
(June 20, 1957) -- The Extension of Route 21 northward through Belleville and Nutley as a six-lane high-speed freeway, bordering the Passaic River, became a reality this week when the State Highway Department received eight bids for construction of a one-mile section from William Street past the Turnpike bridge to Roosevelt Avenue, in Belleville.
The (illegible) Construction Company of Newark, was the lowest of the eight bidders, with its bid of $5,092,636.96.
Railroads brought growth to Nutley and workers needed boarding houses for a safe place to call home
There have been many types of homes in Nutley, one & two family, apartments, townhouses, but none that can offer a history that includes grand interiors, twenty bedrooms, rent by the week, and occupancy by an ever-changing cast of characters.
Rooming houses provide just that, a private room to sleep in and shared bathrooms down the hall. Meals are from local eateries or simple ones such as sandwiches, as no cooking is allowed in the rooms.
Many charity events have been held in Nutley over the past decades including the well documented Nutley Amateur Circus benefitting the Red Cross League in 1894.
Eaton Stone owned quarry property on Kingsland Street where On3 is currently being developed and was famous for being able to throw a somersault from a bare-back horse. His love for the circus led to construction of a wooden pavilion with a sawdust floor and electric lights supplied by the Nichols power plant across the street.
NUTLEY SUN July 3rd 1974 - Today, Nutley's Old Military Hall is still opened for business. The old shingled tavern, which stands on New Street across from Nutley High School, has had a busy and quite lengthy career into which much of the early history of this town has been woven.
Earlier generations used the building as a voting hall, lodge-room, school and meeting hall. Boxing champions Tom Sharkey and Bob Fitzsimmons used to train at the old hall and showgirls in tights danced on its stage as New Jersey saw its first burlesque.
Seventy-five years ago the world came to the Nutley Velodrome as a premier venue for the grand sport of international bicycle racing. The greatest bike riders from around the world traveled to Nutley during the 1930s to compete at the wooden âsaucerâ built by businessman and cycling enthusiast Joseph Miele.
Town Hall is the hardest-working building around, serving three towns for more than a hundred seventy-five years in nearly a dozen diverse rolesâand donning three distinct hats in the process.
The building began its life as a textile mill, part of the Duncan Essex Mills, which produced wool goods. It was built around 1840.
The mill opened in Belleville, a community created just a few years earlier when it seceded from Bloomfield. About thirty years later it was in Franklinâdue to that communityâs secession from Belleville in 1874. And about thirty years after that, in 1902, a vote was taken and Franklin became Nutley.
1902 statistics present a stark contrast
to conditions 100-plus years later:
Total U.S. population was 76,100,000
Nutley population 3,600
The average worker made $200-$400 per year
Only 8% of homes had a telephone
Only 14% of homes in the U.S. had a bathtub.
Coffee cost 15 cents per pound
Sugar cost 4 cents per pound
The average life expectancy was 47 years
Such were the times when on March 5, 1902, the town council adopted a resolution to officially re-name our town from Franklin to Nutley.
Milk, a widely consumed beverage, has been pasteurized, homogenized, flavored, and used as an ingredient in many recipes. Nutley had several dairies that were in business through the 1950s.
The Nutley Dairy Farms at Park Ave. and River Rd. supplied 2,000 quarts a day to area restaurants, stores, and delicatessens. Manuel and Sidney Steinlauf managed a herd of 70 Holsteins and Guernsey cows on the five-acre property which included two barns and a small processing plant. The work was tedious, with long hours and manual labor needed to return cows from fields to feed and milk them.
Wrestling mania seized Nutley. On May 17, 2017, the Nutley Museum at 65 Church Street hosted â50 Years of Nutley Wrestling,â a program that explored Nutley wrestling in its many forms â professional wrestlers from our town, great coaches and student wrestlers from Nutley High School, and much more.
One highlight was a presentation by Sal Scarpa, the brother of the late Luke Scarpa, the most famous professional wrestler who ever called Nutley home. You havenât heard of him, you say? That could be because while he was winning world fame, he adopted a ring name and wrestling persona â Chief Jay Strongbow.
