Branch Brook Park Mendelssohn Statue Landscape
Mendelssohn and fall foliage at Branch Brook Park New Jersey. This pedestal and bust of Felix Mendelssohn, composer of the early 1800s, sits in the Music Grove section of Branch Brook Park. During the mid-1800s, the city of Newark had a very large German population with several German language newspapers, public documents in English and German, German societies and singing groups. The Newark singing group belonged to a Federation of such groups which held a singing competition every few years. One award was typically a bust of a German composer. In 1903, the United Singers of Newark won the bust of Mendelssohn and it was presented to the city of Newark and placed in the park as a symbol of what the German population there had contributed to the city. The bust remained on top this pedestal until it was the victim of vandalism in the late 1970s and knocked off its perch. It was removed from the park and stored in a garage. In 1998, the bust was rediscovered, identified, cleaned and reinstalled, although not in the same original location of the park.
