Dear prospective homeowner,
Welcome! We hope you enjoy living here as much as we did. We've spent seven years here and are sad to leave our wonderful neighborhood and community. We moved here because of many friends and co-workers here, and we were surprised to learn that a family member's parents lived a few houses down at 509 from 1915-1922. There's a picture of "Uncle Tom" playing football on Academy St. when it was a good deal emptier in a frame nearby.
This neighborhood encompasses both South Orange and Maplewood. Sometimes it's referred to as "Town Line," but most often it's "Near Columbia High School," which is the large, stately structure at the end of the street. It's close enough to walk to but not so close that we have tons of kids hanging out on our front lawn. The students are mostly good neighbors and there's a large, thriving pool of babysitters! Our "block" includes Parker Avenue to Kenneth Terrace, Valley Street to Prospect Street.
When we moved here, an older neighbor (who has since passed away) told us that Academy Street used to be known as "Blue Collar Way," since this is where all the postal carriers, teachers, and public employees lived. Now, there's a great mix in our neighborhood. We have people working in the publishing industry (magazines, newspapers, children's books, and comics), finance, public relations, performing arts (we have at least 8 Broadway actors and crew members), fine artists, photographers, lawyers, teachers (including a few professors from nearby Seton Hall), doctors and some "grandparents" -- retired folks that have been here for years and love watching the neighborhood grow. It is a wonderful, friendly community that is welcoming and inclusive.
Some families have been here for decades and have set up the best kind of neighborhood organization -- the kind that throw parties but don't complain about the color of your front curtains. The second weekend in September is the block party, where we all bring food and drink. The town closes off one of the side streets between Academy and Prospect and we have a visit by the Fire Department, a water balloon toss (one family has stayed up late making multiple wheelbarrows-full of small water balloons for this very purpose for a decade, even though their kids have graduated college and moved on) and of course a pinata. All day long, there is an open mike, topped off by a performance by Anoyounous Rex, our block's rock band, made up of a lawyer, a finance guy, a stay-at-home-mom, and a comic book artist. They also throw a big Halloween party for the block at the Maplewood Women's Club every year.
Four times a year, we have progressive dinners. At 7pm, you gather at one house for appetizers. At 8, you move to another for soup and salad. At 9, you go to another for a main course. At 10, everyone descends upon the last house for coffee and dessert. Those who don't host bring beverages. It's a great way to get to know your neighbors, not to mention a great way to see the inside of other houses like yours. We've gotten lots of inspiration from these dinners, seeing how others have dealt with similar spaces. The lovely next-door neighbors have the same house as this one, but it's completely different inside! It's fun to imagine the history of changes done and not done to a 100-year-old house.
We walk to our neighborhood school, Clinton. There is a letter attached about this wonderful school and it certainly expresses how much we love it. That said, many of our neighbors send their kids to the demonstration school, Seth Boyden, and they are thrilled with it.
If you'd like to subscribe to our neighborhood listserv, please go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/prospect_sherman_pl/.
We wish you the best, and hope you will love these towns and these people as much as we do.
No comments:
Post a Comment