I called it ‘quack quack park’ on air — here’s what it actually is

Every now and then on The Judi and EJ Show we have one of those moments. You know the kind. The segment starts one way and ends somewhere completely different and nobody is entirely sure how it happened.

Friday was one of those days.

We were talking about New Jersey town names — the ones that sound strange, the ones with unusual stories behind them. It was a good segment. I was on a roll.

Hi-Nella in Camden County. Mahwah and Ho-Ho-Kus up in Bergen. Buttzville in Warren County — home of Hot Dog Johnny's, which by the way is a mandatory stop after a hike at the Delaware Water Gap. Forked River in Ocean County, which almost every new New Jersey resident pronounces wrong on arrival. And Ong's Hat — easy to say, mysterious to most, but not to me.

Being a Piney I know the Ong's Hat story like the back of my hand. Sometime in the 1800s there was a social gathering in that spot deep in Burlington County. A man named Jacob Ong wanted the affections of a woman who had given her heart to someone else. In frustration he threw his top hat high into the air. It got stuck in a tree. Stayed there for years. The spot became known as Ong's Hat. Some say it is a gateway to the supernatural.

I told that story on air with full confidence. I sounded like a Jersey scholar.

And then I immediately sounded like a Jersey novice.

Quack quack park

I mentioned — casually, confidently — that Bob Williams references a place on his traffic reports all the time. Quack quack park. Somewhere in North Jersey. I said it like it was the most natural thing in the world. Judi and Kyle had never heard of quack quack park. They looked at me the way people look at someone who has just said something deeply questionable.

I am used to that look. Sometimes I deserve it.

Bob Williams — our traffic reporter — texted back almost immediately.

"Hmmmm....Weequahic Park?"

Well. Yes. That would be it.

For some reason the distance between Weequahic and quack quack hit me in a way I was not prepared for. I lost it. Full uncontrollable laughter. The kind that feeds on itself. Kyle had to shut my mic off.

Maybe not the finest radio of my career. But I feel great about it. Sometimes you need that. Thanks to quack quack park — and Bob — for providing it.

SEE ALSO: New Jersey's weirdest borders — towns inside towns and land that isn't ours

Turns out I was not entirely wrong

Here is the thing. Weequahic Park is actually pronounced Wee-QUAY-ic. Wikipedia notes that when spoken rapidly it comes out closer to WEEK-wake. I have been hearing Bob say it on traffic reports for years and my ear landed on quack quack. Given the rapid-fire nature of traffic reporting I am choosing to stand by my interpretation.

Also — I probably need a hearing check.

Weequahic Park — what it actually is

Now that I have thoroughly embarrassed myself let me tell you something genuinely interesting. Weequahic Park in Newark's South Ward in Essex County is a remarkable place with a history most New Jersey residents do not know.

The 311-acre park — including an 80-acre lake — was designed by the Olmsted Brothers firm, the same landscape architecture firm behind some of the most celebrated parks in America. They also designed Branch Brook Park right there in Newark. The name Weequahic comes from the Lenni-Lenape and means "head of the cove." Tradition holds that the spring-fed lake once served as the boundary between two bands of Lenape people — the Raritan and the Hackensack.

The park was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2003 for its significance in architecture, community planning and landscape architecture.

In 1923 Weequahic Park hosted the first American Track and Field Championships for women — a piece of sports history that happened right here in New Jersey that almost nobody knows about.

Philip Roth — one of the great American novelists of the 20th century, a Newark native — wrote about Weequahic Park in The Plot Against America, set in the neighborhood where he grew up.

Kyle is going to want to visit

Here is the part that made me do a double take. In the early 2020s Weequahic Park underwent significant upgrades and became the home game site for the Rutgers University Scarlet Raiders baseball team. A 311-acre historic park in Newark — designed by the Olmsted Brothers, named by the Lenni-Lenape, written about by Philip Roth — is now also a college baseball venue.

Kyle — who would love this place for both the baseball and the golf history connected to the park — I owe you a field trip.

A new community center opened in 2021, called the crown jewel of the South Ward at its ribbon-cutting. The East Coast Greenway runs through the park. The McNeil Path — a 2.2-mile rubberized trail around the lake — is one of the best running loops in Essex County.

All of this. Right there in Newark. Right there in the place I have been calling quack quack park for years.

I should get out more. Starting with Weequahic.