KINGSLAND MANOR

By David Wilson

The Kingsland Park waterfalls area still serves us with its beauty as a backdrop for many celebratory pictures of graduations, weddings, engagements, and nature photos. People fish the dam hydraulics and search for crayfish.

Waterfalls come in all shapes and sizes. They can be found everywhere and many are the focus of world-class tourist destinations. The sights and sounds help block out our industrialized world and allow us to escape into nature’s beauty. Negative ions are created that help cleanse the air and stimulate our minds and bodies. Oxygen is infused into the water benefitting aqueous creatures downstream; just ask any fisherperson who has cast a line into the turbulence.

Do you know its connections to the Booth and Kingsland families, pro boxing and burlesque, booze and brawls, and North Belleville?

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.