On November 7, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar and National Park Service Director Jon Jarvis will designate Great Falls in Paterson, New Jersey as America’s 397th National Park. The city of Paterson has donated four tracts of land around the Great Falls for this purpose. The National Park Service will hold a series of public meetings this month to identify stakeholders and determine their vision for the park. The full press release is available by clicking here.
The process began in 2009, when President Obama signed legislation authorizing the NPS to establish a historic site in Paterson, NJ. The site is meant to celebrate Paterson as the nation’s first planned industrial city, and includes the ruins of a number of industrial ruins known as the Allied Textile Printing site. There is $450,000 in federal funds available to facilitate the planning process.
(www.northjersey.com)