Kean Magazine - Those were the Days

Rose-Marie Donahue, administrative assistant in the graduate dean’s office, has vivid childhood memories of Kean Hall, and in particular, the hay loft above the barn. She lived with her family on Gebhardt Avenue in Elizabeth, N.J., in the 1940s. During the summers, the Elizabeth recreation department provided an open-air summer camp for neighborhood children at what was then called The Elmora Oval, the site of today’s Wilkins Theatre. "It was quite an adventure to come over here," Donahue recalled. "There were camp counselors who supervised us from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. We played games and used the athletic equipment provided by the recreation department. It was a sort of meeting place for the neighborhood children."

Often, Donahue and her friends would sneak away from camp, cut through the woods around the perimeter of the property on their bikes and climb up in the loft of the barn to play in the hay right above the pigs and cows. The scattered bikes outside stuck out like sore thumbs, and the groundskeeper would stand below the hay loft holding a pitch fork and yell, "You kids up in the loft, get out," Donahue recalls.

On Sundays, at 3 p.m., however, the gates were open and neighbors were treated to a "milking show" performed by farmhands. "They sold butter, cream and eggs in front of the barn. My parents frequently bought milk there," Donahue said, describinghow the tops of the milk bottles were filled with pure cream.

As Kean Hall welcomed the first students, Donahue reflected on the transformation saying, "It’s unbelievable!"

Indeed, the transformation from working farm to hub of student services is quite remarkable. Before the state of New Jersey purchased the property in 1954 for what was then Newark State Teachers College, Kean Hall was known as Green Lane Farm. Hamilton Fish Kean began planning for his family’s future residence in 1912 when suburban sprawl was an unknown concept and the estate spanned 125 acres of farmland. The main Kean-family estate, Liberty Hall, was located across Morris Turnpike, the current Morris Avenue. Though it was an important east-west travel route in the 18th and 19th centuries, one must assume that traffic congestion, too, was an unknown concept. Visitors to Liberty Hall and Green Lane Farm are said to have also arrived by boat on the Elizabeth River.

Kean hired the New York architect Julius F. Gaylor, who designed the buildings according to the principles of Gothic Norman-Tudor style that was very popular at the time. Gaylor utilized certain unique construction methods such as a cavity-wall design presumably for energy conservation. The image of Gaylor’s head is carved into the tower wall overlooking one of the courtyards.

Kean’s son, Robert Winthrop Kean, wrote that his father considered the farm a haven where he relaxed on weekends while inspecting the giant grapes in the two greenhouses, scratching the black pigs with the blue eyes and praising the Guernsey cows for their generous milk production.