The "Stone Museum"

Back in August (the same day of the warehouse series) I photographed this scultpure at THE STONE MUSEUM in Monroe Township, NJ.

The land the Stone Museum is on houses 3 different venues: Stone Museum, Display World, and Greek's Playland.



Their website describes the Stone Museum as:

The Stone Museum represents many things to many people, but it isn't an easy place to define or pin down. As our name suggests, we are a museum of minerals and fossils with a host of indoor and outdoor displays that are “hands on”, enabling visitors of all ages to actually touch specimens from 80 countries. One of our most popular exhibits is the Fluorescent Room, where visitors witness a display of hundreds of rocks (most from the Garden State) that glow in a vibrant array of colors. Recently we have acquired a dinosaur egg from China as well as a leg bone from one of the largest carnivorous dinosaurs—the African Spinosaurus. Kids also love our “recycled dinosaur”, Monroe, a giant twenty-foot-tall reptile replica who roars with real ferocity.

And this is the same Monroe the Trackhoe-saurus the "recycled dinosaur" mentioned in the paragraph above.



I've gone to this place quite a few times in my life...mainly back in highschool because it was somewhere different to go with some sitting areas that had water features/fountains all around.

RoadsideAmerica.com mentions the sitting areas were part of the section called DISPLAY WORLD: Display World is a pleasant labyrinth of sheltered walkways, waterfalls, lakes, and Japanese-style bridges.

I can hardly describe this place though. As the paragraph from their website says...it's a hard place to describe. They sell rocks and stones there but they have all of these sculptures and random different things on their large property (Fluorescent Rock Room, Rainbow Room, a 750-lb granite sphere rotates on a spout of water, "Cyclown," the armless, World's Tallest Clown, a driving range made of salvaged satellite dishes that mark the distance for golfers).

They say: Yet we are more than a user-friendly geology and natural history museum. We are also a showcase of “practical masonry,” with hundreds of full-size displays of all types of stone products used in building construction and landscape design set in a continuous wall around our man-made lake (there's no guess work when you can see finished walls and walkways in “the outdoor showroom”). Our museum also depicts the tools and techniques used in past and present stonework. Many visitors have thanked us for helping them choose the right material for their project.

When my sister and I went with our cameras we didn't get much due to the fact that part of it was closed off from a private party.

I did capture this purple sculpture, which I thought was pretty cool! It's a scultpure made of used automobile parts into anatomically accurate dinosaur sculpture!



More detail about the dinosaur sculpture: The Stone Museum has created a memorial to the brilliant and acclaimed sculptor Jim Gary (1939-2006), whose "20th Century Dinosaurs" have been exhibited in museums around the nation and the world. Jim, a longtime friend of The Stone Museum, combined and crafted used automobile parts into anatomically accurate dinosaur sculptures, which are infused with a spirit of imaginative realism. Our exhibit focuses on the genius of his technique as well as the highlights of his storied career. Three Gary creations are on display as part of our permanent collection.


This place was also featured on Roadside America if you'd like to see some of the other "oddities" that you can find on the property: http://www.roadsideamerica.com/attract/NJMONgreek.html

These oddoties are the reason that I will re-visit the Stone Museum again once the weather is better!

Check this post again soon...I have some other shots to edit that I'll add in from this place.

To view my gallery with other ROADSIDE ODDITIES (as I call them) click here: http://jenweaverphotography.smugmug.com/gallery/3188829/1/245605746

Photobooks/The World's Largest Lightbulb...I'm not kidding! It's is!

These photos you'll see below were taken back on July 21, 2007. This weekend I concentrated on catching up on 2007!

My goal is to make my own "Best of 2007" hard-bound book of my favorite works. In order to start creating the book I need to edit all of my 2007 photos so I can see what I'm working with and decide what I want to feature.

To create the book I'm going to be using BOOKSMART that works in conjuction with my smugmug account once I downloaded BLURB Booksmart's software.

Pricing can be found here: http://www.blurb.com/book/pricing

An article about the company found here in WIRED: http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2006/08/71683



Now on to the photos...here is something I bet you've never seen before...

It's the World's Largest Lightbulb!


Edison - Menlo Park, New Jersey

The Thomas Edison Memorial Tower and Menlo Park Museum was built in 1937 to mark the "Birthplace of Recorded Sound" in the Menlo Park section of what is now the town of Edison, NJ. The World's Largest Light Bulb is thirteen feet tall, weighs eight tons, and is illuminated at night. The tower marks the spot where Edison invented the light bulb (Henry Ford stole the actual workshop and bottled Edison's Last Breath). The museum curator, Jack Stanley, entertained with amazing tales of Edison and his competitors, but said the Last Breath thing was a bunch of hooey.

Inside the tower's base is a "highly exhausted" light bulb that's been burning since 1929

As seen on RoadsideAmerica.com: http://www.roadsideamerica.com/sights/sigh...AttrId=%3D11143











I toured the museum, it was quite crowded with people on a Saturday afternoon. I listened to the curator, Jack Stanley, for a little bit and then snuck out to snap some the shots above. You'll notice in the 1st shot that there is a metal chainlink fence around the monument...it's actually under repair so I didn't get to go inside like I had hoped (there's always next time I go by). While I was in the museum I learned that they just got the final grant to restore the tower which was in disrepair.





Here is a few videos that I found on YouTube of the Edison Museum Curator - Jack Stanley... just in case you'd like to hear what I heard when I went there...