Two Paterson parks beside the Great Falls will get $1.2M renovation

PATERSON — The city’s newly formed national park might begin to look like one when landscapers get to work on a $1.2 million project targeting 18 acres around the Great Falls.

State and county dollars will help restore two city parks beside the falls that are poised to become federal land once the National Parks Service and Paterson complete a complicated land deal sometime after September, Darren Boch, superintendent of the Great Falls park, said Friday. The federal government cannot fund projects until it owns land, he said.

“It’s more confusing than a real estate closing, trying to transfer property from one government to another,” he said.

The federal government established the Paterson Great Falls National Historical Park in November amid much fanfare, but not much has changed on the ground since then. The lack of activity has led some advocates to worry about the park’s image as litter and crime has been cited as problems at both Overlook Park and Mary Ellen Kramer Park.

But Boch anticipates completion of the work sometime next year, and planners have tapped the Olmsted Center for Landscape Preservation, which works in national parks throughout the Northeast, to come up with a design.

Most other work won’t occur until after a long-term general management plan is finished in 2013, allowing Boch to then begin to apply for federal project funds.

Boch spoke about the park at Montclair State University on Friday, where he heard academics from the college discuss the falls’ relevance. He emphasized that every new national park takes years to get going, and that the Great Falls, with an 18-month deadline for a finished plan, is on an expedited track. Such plans are usually due in three years, he said.

Information presented at the forum will be considered — along with reams of other information — by planners who are tasked with shaping the visitor experience and developing draft concepts.

It’s customary for national parks to tap the expertise of local colleges. William Paterson University ran a forum about the park in March. Both colleges have connections to the park’s advisory commission. Its members include Montclair State University President Susan Cole and former William Paterson education dean, Leslie Agard Jones.

Friday’s forum represented a wide range of disciplines. A talk about hydrology was followed by a presentation on poetry that had been inspired by the place. Mayor Jeffery Jones attended some of the talks.

www.northjersey.com/news/Two_Paterson_pa..._12M_renovation.html