Yantacaw Park
Park Drive, Nutley, Essex County, NJ

Directions:

Garden State Parkway exit 151; left onto Watchung Avenue; right turn onto Passaic Avenue; left turn onto Centre Street; Centre Street past Franklin Ave. and turn left onto Park Drive.

From Route 3 East/West:  Get off at Main Avenue (Nutley/Passaic).  Go down ramp to light.  Make left.  Go through lights at shopping center.  Proceed past Kingsland Avenue light to the next light (Chestnut Street).  Turn right and proceed up to Franklin Avenue. Continue on Centre St. past Franklin Ave. and turn left onto Park Drive. 

Geology:

The Third River flows southward just above the Passaic County/Essex County Line south through the Upper Montclair Golf Course, picks up the water from Yantacaw Brook, widens out into Clarks Pond, glides along the banks of Brookside Park, through Foley Field and Memorial Park, goes under the Garden State Parkway and then completes a U-turn to head north and then east through Glendale Cemetery/Forest Hill Field Club and then turns north again entering Nutley Township, goes through Booth Park and past Yantacaw Park, through Memorial Park and then Kingsland Park.  It then heads north into Passaic County and east into the Passaic River.

History:

Judy in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania asked a question about Yantacaw Park which her mother used to take her as an infant: "Was there a pond there that one could ice skate on in  the winter months?"

Doris in Colorado replied: ". . .the Mud Hole was in Memorial Park, but all the parks in Nutley were in a continuous strip along Third
River. The northernmost of the parks was Kingsland Park (near Yantacaw School), which ran into Memorial Park near Vreeland Avenue, which in turn was continuous with Yantacaw Park, near where Park Avenue ended up, and then Booth Park, south of Center Street. But the whole thing was just one unbroken strip of greenery with walkways and the ever-present Third River, known to most of us as "the brook."

Source:  NJ-MEMORIES-L Archives: January 2001: http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/read/NJ-MEMORIES/2001-01/0978996653