Another good shot from oldnewark.com is this view of the bandstand area in Branch Brook Park. Most of the bandstand itself is visible to the left. Don't know what year this was taken, but it's apparently before Prudential added those two stone lions to the decor.

This is just great

I think that is the park avenue bridge, with where barringer would be built towards the right...

My old fishing hole! Where I used to use my brown painted steel rod and perpetually snarled reel from the R&S store on Orange Street to catch rather pallid sunfish on worms dug up on 11th Street -- the start of an outdoor life. :-)

That has got to be an early photo, maybe the 1930s? The extensive bulwark that continues around to the left and in the foreground wasn't there in the 1950s, and that bandstand looks like something from the teens or twenties--much nicer than the box most of us grew up seeing there. The guy sitting on the bench is wearing a cap style more popular in those eras, too. Definitely before the 1950s, and maybe even before the 1940s.

WOW,
It's "Pre Lions"

I'm quoting the following from this web site: http://www.wirednewyork.com/forum/archive/index.php?t-4024.html

"The much-loved "Prudential Lions," statues that were once in front of Newark's Prudential Life Insurance Building, were installed on the west shore of the lake in 1959."

Can this be? Doesn't seem possible.

It was either '66 or '67 , but there was a free concert in the Park starring Jerome Hines and Kathleen Nolan by those famous Lions...
I recall them really getting anxious about the 'racial' song- "you've got to be carefully taught" from "South Pacific" getting all mental....
Well; for the record... I didn't care... it was a wonderful night with firefly's buzzing in Branch Brook-with my mom and dad and all of us were young...
The evening was perfect.. - the music was wonderful- heck- even the Real McCoy chick was great!
Thanks for the Memories- I wish we took pictures that night.
This will have to do -- no lions :-(

yes that was my responance
too