The Forest Hill Community Association

Charles Cummings, the noted city historian, describes Forest Hill as an architectural and residential jewel, lying to the east of Branch Brook Park, an Essex County park and the oldest county park in the United States.  Forest Hill is one of Newark's most attractive and elegant neighborhoods.  It was developed between 1880 and 1925 through the efforts of three great families, the Hellers, the Ballantines and the Clarks.  These families lived here, built their great homes here and served as captains of nineteenth century industrial Newark. 

While the exact boundaries of the district have tended to change slightly over the years it is essentially the area bounded by Second Avenue on the south, Grafton Avenue on the north, Branch Brook Park on the west and Mt. Prospect Avenue on the east.

Some of Newark's best-known architectural landmarks are found within its boundaries. The Ballantine Gates entryway to Branch Brook Park was a gift of Robert F. Ballantine in 1899.  Across from the gates on Lake Street are two identical homes related to the Whitehead family.  The Georgian mansion of Wallace Scudder, founder of the Newark News, is located on Parker Street.

On Abington Avenue is the Victorian home of Reverend William Hayes Ward.  At 346 Mt. Prospect Avenue is the William Clark mansion, one of the state's most important nineteenth century residences and now home of the North Ward Center.  The Former Feigenspan mansion of 1913 became the Newark Home of world famous opera soprano Maria Jeritza in the 1940s.  Ms. Jeritza lived there for the next forty years. 

Delavan Avenue hosts some of the earliest houses in the neighborhood, designed for Louis Tiffany of the family that founded Tiffany & Co. in New York.  The Sydenham House located on "The Old Road to Bloomfield" and built in 1712 is the city's oldest private residence.  D.J. and Elizabeth Henderson restored it in the 1950s.  This unique residence is perhaps one of the oldest residential dwellings in the entire New Jersey-New York Region.

The neighborhood is very well-preserved. Almost none of the historic houses have been torn down, converted to apartments, or converted to institutional use. The northern part of the neighborhood is part of an official historic district.