After decades of struggle and strife, a boost in national tourism could soon signal smooth sailing for the town of Patterson, New Jersey, once known as Silk City.
After years of neglect, the once picturesque, now graffiti-stained Hinchliffe Stadium, and art-deco based ballpark - that once served as the home field of Negro League icons and future major league hall of famers Satchel Paige, Larry Doby, and Monte Irvin - has been designated a national landmark.
This comes on the heels of the nearby 77-foot Great Falls waterfall, which to this day remains largely credited with fueling the Industrial Revolution, similarly distinguished.
Walk the streets of Patterson these days and the sense of pride is evident among its citizens. The pride is as apparent as the hope that springs eternal among a blue-collar lunch-pail carrying work force, that the worst of the employment doldrums may mercifully be nearing an end.
Even as he admitted to city officials that much of the hard work only now begins as they plot how best to turn their newfound treasures into legitimate attractions and profitable windfalls, park superintendent Darren Boch, nonetheless, struggled to contain his optimism.
“The National Park Service is working to acquire land around the waterfall from other owners to develop a plan to make the park more visibly friendly,” he said. “That’s what will set the experience here apart; you have the two experiences, a natural wonder in an urban landscape that goes to the heart of the Industrial American experience.
The history of Patterson and its nearly 60 percent Latino, 30 percent African-American populous has long revolved around its own distinct culture. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, its textile mills and generation after generation of immigrant factory workers earned the town the name Silk City. Bounded by the Passaic River, the second largest waterfall east of the Mississippi, facilities back then were powered by energy produced at Great Falls.
And when residents weren’t chugging along, they we’re unwinding with baseball, where teams like the New York Black Yankees, New York Cubans, and the Newark Eagles all entertained featuring at least 11 players that eventually played their way into MLB’s Hall of Fame.
“I want people to know that if was one of the famous parks where the Negro Leagues played, some of the biggest stars played there,” Irvin, now 94, recently told The Associated Press from his Houston home. "Maybe baseball can again become very prominent at the park."
Renovation costs are estimated to reach $20 million, nearly 10 percent of which Mayor Jeffrey Jones insists has already been raised.