The two colorful mosaic-tile murals that greet us upon entering the Visitor’s Center in Branch Brook Park, were commissioned in 1985 on the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Essex County Park System. Under the direction of the then Park Com- missioner William Scalzo, a modern Activities Center was erected to serve neighboring senior citizens, Newark athletic teams, occasional cultural events and the annual Cherry Blossom Festival.

In order to properly decorate and lend a festive air to the new Center, Liz Del Tufo, the Essex County Director of Cultural Affairs at the time, commissioned a major work of public art by mosaicist Phillip Danzig, of Upper Montclair. The work was envisioned to express the historic, public and recreational purposes of the Park System, to feature the work of a recognized Essex County artist and to be constructed in a permanent material. It was dedicated by Nicholas Amato, the former County Executive, in 1987.

     PURPOSE:       Looking into the background of the County Park System, Danzig encountered a heraldic lion on the Commission’s seal. The agency had been founded in 1895 and is the oldest in the United States. The image of a fierce rampant lion prancing through a field of flowers was chosen to suggest the origins of the park’s English-style design.

The scarlet color also recalls the bright pinks of the extensive cherry orchard in which the building is located. Consisting of more than 2,000 flowering trees, these hills and vales are the setting for the ever-popular Cherry Blossom Festival and Annual Run, which occurs on a Sunday, late in April. The blooms attract visitors from the entire metropolitan region, especially those of Japanese ancestry -- for whom red is a particu- larly happy color. The lion also reminds us of the abundant contemporary African- American population of Newark, and of the Lion of Judea, symbolic of Newark’s former Jewish residents.

Chosen to echo the recreational and fantasy uses of this urban “breathing space,” the mythological Unicorn, a dazzling white figure, is displayed against an unusual twilight background. Distributed unobtrusively about may be found several diverse elements, such as sea shells from the Jersey shore, a ceramic rabbit from the Moravian Pottery Works and a brass star denoting Haley’s Comet, which had reappeared in 1985.

      MATERIALS:       The twin panels consist of glazed ceramic tiles, hand cut and individually placed. Each measures 4 Ft. wide and 7 Ft. 9 In. tall. The designs were assembled off-site and erected in niches left for them in two walls of the lobby.

      ARTIST:        Phillip Danzig has executed many designs in mosaic tile. Other works include five panels at the Rafael Hernandez Elementary School, Newark; projects in White Meadow Lake and Montclair and benches at Grant’s Tomb, NYC. Danzig, an architect and former director of the “Wet Paint Community Mural Project” in Essex County, was assisted on this project by Sarah Lindquist Fishbone, of St. Louis.