Garden State Park Racetrack

Garden State Park was a harness and thoroughbred race track in Cherry Hill, Camden County, New Jersey. It is now the site of a high-end, mixed-use "town center" development of stores, restaurants, apartments, townhouses, and condominiums. Garden State Park's 600 acre (≈1 square mile) land area is roughly bounded by Route 70, Haddonfield Road, Chapel Avenue, and New Jersey Transit's Atlantic City Rail Line.

Garden State Park opened on July 18, 1942 after delays caused by raw material rationing at the United States' entry into World War II. Due to the seizure of 30,000 tons of structural steel by war authorities, developer Eugene Mori mostly constructed Garden State Park's ornate Georgian-style grandstand of wood. Limited amounts of steel came from the demolition of New York City's elevated railways. Despite this inauspicious start, 'the Garden,' as it was known, was officially 'out of the gate.'

In its heyday, it would host some of the finest thoroughbred racehorses in the nation at the signature Jersey Derby. Its Garden State Stakes and the Gardenia Stakes offered some of the largest purses available for two-year-olds. Horses raced at Garden State Park included Whirlaway, Citation, and Secretariat on a cold, rainy Saturday afternoon in early 1972 in the Garden State Futurity.

Garden State Park's success sparked a wave of entertainment-oriented growth and development in the formerly rural community of Delaware Township, New Jersey (now Cherry Hill Township). Mori followed his achievement at the racetrack with the construction of the Cherry Hill Inn on the site of Abraham Browning's Cherry Hill Farm (at Route 38 and Haddonfield Road); and in 1967 the Cherry Hill Lodge, also on Route 38 to the east of the Cherry Hill Mall. Soon to follow in 1961 was the Cherry Hill Shopping Center (today's Cherry Hill Mall, the first enclosed shopping mall on the East Coast) and the super-luxurious Rickshaw Inn with its gold-plated roof, which was situated on Route 70 opposite Garden State Park.

Diagonally across Route 70 on the map in then-Delaware Township was the Latin Casino, adjacent to the Rickshaw and the Garden. This dinner nightclub hosted acts like Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Liberace, Cherry Hill Estates neighbors Al Martino & Frankie Avalon and more; before closing due to competition from casinos in Atlantic City.

Followed later by Atlantic City Race Course and Monmouth Park Racetrack (1946), Garden State Park became a crucial part of what was called the "Golden Triangle" of New Jersey racing.

The "Golden Triangle" lost a leg on April 14, 1977, when a fire raged undetected at Garden State Park in the Colonial Room restaurant's kitchen during a racing program. Despite no functional firefighting system, the wooden grandstand lasted long enough to allow more than 11,000 patrons and employees to escape the inferno. At 4:45 p.m., the walls and massive roof overhang of the grandstand gave way to the flames and reduced the structure to a smoking ruin. Despite the flying embers nearly igniting The Rickshaw Inn across the street and the wooden barns and stables on the backstretch, the damage was contained to the massive grandstand complex. Three people died in the fire. One patron (Ed Bucholski) and one employee were later found in the rubble, and one fire officer (John McWilliams) died of a heart attack on-scene. But, the next day, the vault with the previous days' "take" was opened, with the money intact; while outside on the track, horses continued to train.

Despite the stables on the east side of the track remaining open for training, Garden State Park no longer held races until securities trader Robert Brennan financed construction of a new $178 million steel and glass grandstand, which opened on April 1, 1985. The first race that day followed the schedule from the day the original track burned. The track, running night programs, provided racing for standardbred harness racing as well as thoroughbred racing. The grandstand also had on the Clubhouse level The Phoenix Room, which also served as a large banquet hall that hosted events year-round.