“And the next national park status is awarded to… Hawaii? Oregon? Somewhere in the Rockies?”
“The envelope please.”
“The next national park is awarded to… Patterson, New Jersey???!”
New Jersey?
You read it right, kiddoes! There are efforts coming from two different fronts building momentum to call a little piece of Heaven right in Patterson, NJ a state and national park.
The second largest falls east of the Mississippi are the Great Falls located in downtown Patterson.
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N.J. city pushes national park status |
By Charisse Jones, USA TODAY
PATERSON, N.J. — When out-of-towners visit Brian LoPinto, the Empire State Building isn't the first place he takes them.
Instead, his sightseeing excursions begin in his hometown, at the 77-foot waterfalls that pound into the Passaic River and once brought this faded industrial hub power and glory.
"I take them off Route 19 … and then all of a sudden you bear to the right, go into the parking lot and there's this beautiful piece of nature that God created," says LoPinto, 29, who grew up a few blocks from the towering falls. "It's majestic. That's the one place I go to whenever I want to gather my thoughts."
Overshadowed only by Niagara, the Great Falls are the second-largest waterfall east of the Mississippi River based on width and volume,an unexpected pocket of natural splendor in the heart of a city better known in recent years for poverty and crime than pastoral respites.
Now twin efforts are underway to create a state and national park around the falls that officials say would provide badly needed open space for residents, become a magnet for development and burnish the frayed image of New Jersey's third most populous city.
The U.S. House of Representatives is set to vote late today on legislation to create a national park around the falls. A similar bill is currently before a Senate committee. In addition, the state has set aside $10 million for the first phase of turning it into a state park.
"Paterson is one of the most densely populated towns in the country, but it has the falls," says Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr., D-N.J., a former Paterson mayor who introduced the House legislation. He says national park status would illuminate the town's place in the nation's manufacturing history. "This was the first industrial city," he says. "Paterson had railroads, cotton, silk, the Colt revolver. You name it, it happened in Paterson, N.J."
Paterson's drive for park status mirrors efforts in other cities to use natural landscapes for creating urban parks that draw new businesses, visitors and residents to once-blighted communities:
•In Denver, $70 million of investments in and around the once heavily polluted South Platte River have helped spark a downtown renaissance. The cleanup of the river and its tributaries and creation of trails and parks have had a $4 billion economic impact on the area, says Jeff Shoemaker, executive director of the Greenway Foundation, which spearheaded the revitalization.
Among the additions: museums, converted lofts and a new Invesco Field at Mile High Stadium for the Denver Broncos.
"The South Platte River greenway is one of the core reasons for the resurgence of the core city of Denver," Shoemaker says. "People often think the environment and economy are at odds. I find that misguided. Certainly in urban areas, one benefits the other."
•In Atlanta, a onetime granite quarry will be turned into a reservoir and become the centerpiece of what will be the city's largest park. The crater and the 136-acre park that eventually will surround it will be part of the 25-year, $2.8 billion Atlanta BeltLine project in which an old rail corridor becomes the foundation for new transit links and greenways.
When the quarry is transformed, "there will be a tremendous amount of new economic opportunities around it," says Tina Arbes, the project's chief operating officer.
Town with a history
Paterson embodied the vision of Alexander Hamilton, a top aide to George Washington and the nation's first Treasury secretary, becoming the first planned industrial city in the USA. The falls helped power its textile mills, and Paterson became known as "Silk City" by the end of the 19th century. Its mills also churned out locomotives, the first Colt gun revolvers and the engine that propelled Charles Lindbergh's Spirit of St. Louis on the first solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean.
Paterson also was the birthplace of comic Lou Costello, baseball legend Larry Doby, and poet Allen Ginsberg. In recent years it was perhaps better known as the setting for Lean On Me, the 1989 film in which Morgan Freeman starred as Joe Clark, a stern real-life principal of a troubled local high school.
Paterson's Great Falls is already on the National Register of Historic Places and is both a National Natural and National Historic Landmark. National park status would help funnel more attention and resources to the site, which currently draws 100,000 visitors a year.
Congress will make the final decision. A report last year by the National Park Service did not find a compelling reason for the Great Falls to become part of its network, citing the existence of other parks with similar natural and historic attributes, and the park service's own flat budget.
"It is a special place, make no mistake about that," says Jeffrey Olson, a Park Service spokesman. But "New Jersey is doing a very good job of managing the site … We did not see a need to take over."
As part of its improvements to the site, the state plans to build an amphitheater, a visitors center and possibly a catwalk at the base of the falls.
Looking for development
This working-class city of 150,000, which has a 6% unemployment rate and a median income of $31,723, has battled decay, drugs and crime.
"Do we have our fair share of problems? Like any major city, of course we do," says Mayor Jose Torres, who has worked on luring large retailers and businesses back to his city. "That's what I'm trying to change. … I'm hoping with the designation of the national park, it will put the icing on the cake."
State officials hope to jump-start investment in the surrounding community and increase tourism.
"It's been demonstrated that public investment to develop quality open space … often serves as a cornerstone for urban redevelopment," says John Watson Jr., deputy commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. With Liberty State Park in nearby Jersey City drawing 14 million visitors a year, "we know if we build it, they will come."