We were amazed when we finally reached the main exhibit area. There were expansive and desolate parking fields right there in the middle of the woods where throngs of daytrippers once parked their wood-paneled station wagons. We listened to the sounds of animals moving in the trees around us hoping to catch a glimpse of a monkey or baboon. The pavement was cracked with weed poking up everywhere. We walked the long roadway up to the main exhibit area of the park. Even though everything was overgrown and had reverted to a true wilderness state, I could still recognize the place from my visit there over twenty years before. Not only did this entrance look reminiscent of the gates shown in that movie, but as we walked through them we were actually traveling back in time. It was like we were entering the gates of Jurassic Park, in more ways than one. Right next to the mountaintop airfield stood the massive and imposing gates that bore the words JUNGLE HABITAT in giant wooden letters. An old billboard on the side of road said “Nairobi Airport.” This, we assumed, was a vestige from the Jungle Habitat days. Turning off the Greenwood Lake Turnpike in West Milford, we headed up a hill toward the small Greenwood Lake Airport. When we did go we could hardly believe what we found. Still, for some reason we never though to actually go to the site of the old abandoned park until this new tip came in. It was always rumored that these were the descendants of escapees from Jungle Habitat. Over the years Weird NJ had received reports sporadically from the West Milford area of sightings of non-indigenous species of animals, such as monkeys and kangaroos, roaming the woods there. I remember going there myself as a kid of about thirteen, clad in a pair of striped bell-bottom trousers, “desert boots” and a shirt with a collar large enough to rival the Flying Nun’s. The park was located way up north in West Milford near Greenwood Lake and the NY state border. It was an African safari theme park operated by Warner Brothers in the early to mid 1970s where you could drive your car through fields where “wild” animals, such as lions, zebras and elephants, roamed free. “Yeah, I know,” our tipster said, “but everything is still there, as if it closed yesterday.”Īnyone reading this who is old enough to remember Mood Rings, Pet Rocks or “Bicentennial Minutes” will probably recall ads for Jungle Habitat on TV. and I that we go check out Jungle Habitat. One day, back around 1997, someone suggested to Mark S.
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