About Town

History Comes Alive

Students visited Ellis Island dressed as immigrants; WNYC's Leonard Lopate will tell tales of public radio tonight

SOMS sixth graders become immigrants for a day Each year, if possible, South Orange Middle School Social Studies teacher Caroline Pew takes her classes to Ellis Island – dressed as immigrants, so they can be transported back into time and live the history they've been learning about in class. "My goal is to always make history come alive to all students," Pew said. "I prepare students by having groups write and perform skits, acting out the immigration process. Then they take that knowledge and visual history to Ellis Island where they can actually see, touch and experience the real place where these things happened." Students whose ancestors who came through Ellis Island also get an opportunity to look them up in immigration records or …

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Local History: South Orange Hotel

The hotel was demolished in 1969 after being declared a fire hazard.

In South Orange, we often have no choice but to be hospitable and allow our guests to stay overnight if they do not stay at the nearest hotel several miles away. However, up until the 1910s, many people stayed at the South Orange Hotel, which, until 1969, was located at Village Plaza, at the convergence of Valley Street and South Orange Avenue. Since South Orange town records only go back to 1869, when the Village was founded, we don't know officially when the inn was built. Several legends surround the history of the hotel. Edith Bishop Sherman, who lived on Melrose Place, was mentioned in the April 20, 1969 edition of the Newark Sunday News. She claimed that the South Orange Hotel was built around 1700 on the property of the son of area …

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SOMS 6th Graders Report for Training at Fort Pew

Social Studies teacher Caroline Pew has a unique approach to WW1 history.

It isn't every day that a Social Studies teacher will let her classes run around the halls of South Orange Middle School. But on Friday, Caroline Pew's sixth grade classes engaged in simulation training to be deployed to Germany for the start of World War I. Since Pew believes in a hands-on approach to teaching history, she does not have students use textbooks in her class. So when it was time to learn about WWI, instead of saying "turn to page 52," she welcomed students outside of her classroom -- known for the day as Fort Pew -- with "Welcome to boot camp! My name is General Pew!" Students were then assigned to positions of either soldiers or the coveted role of sergeants and ordered to run around the second floor to get themselves in …

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Walk in the Park: History of South Mountain Reservation

An overview of the Reservation's history, through the decades.

"Wow." I always say that word when admiring the views from Crest Drive in South Mountain Reservation and can never resist thinking back on the Reservation’s history, which is truly more than we sometimes think it is. South Mountain Reservation is located in the Newark Basin in the Watchung Mountains. Watchung meant "the high hills" to the Lenape Native Americans. Located in the West Orange portion of the Reservation on Walker Road is Turtle Back Rock, which dates back 2 million years and was created when lava cooled and separated into large columns that look like a turtle’s back. Turtle Back Zoo is named for Turtle Back Rock. Washington Rock is a central piece of the Reservation's history. Located at the end of Crest Drive, it was the site…

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Craig Axtell

12:58 pm on Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Great article, Jared!   more ›