Drive west on Route 22 from Mountainside to North Plainfield, and you’ll pass through a patchwork of brushy woods, gas stations, chain stores, diners, tire shops and shopping malls. It wasn’t always this way.
In 1944, as World War II slogged along in Europe and the Pacific, the Garden Club of New Jersey dreamed up an initiative to beautify a 5.2-mile stretch of Route 22 in Union and Somerset counties and dedicate it to those serving in the armed forces. It would be dubbed Blue Star Drive.
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