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Volume 28
Summer 1999
Number 2
The
Suburbanization of Paterson, NJ's National
Historic Landmark District
David
Soo, a Paterson resident, reports on a threat to
preserve the city's industrial landscape.
There
are times when an average citizen must develop
expertise in order to stop something wrong from
happening. Ten years ago, when I moved to
Paterson, I never expected to find myself doing
just that. Now I am part of a preservation
battle against the city and a developer over a
proposed prefabricated, suburban tract housing
project on a 7-acre, city-owned property,
formerly the Allied Textile Printing (ATP) site,
adjacent to the Great Falls and along the
Passaic River.
The ATP site is
a key property in the Great Falls National
Historic Landmark District. The historic
district is known especially for the use of the
tremendous waterpower derived from the 77'-high
falls and fed to the mills through a
three-tiered engineered water raceway system
enabled by the natural contours of the terrain.
The ATP site was one of the first locations
developed by the Society for Establishing Useful
Manufactures (S.U.M.) with Alexander Hamilton
and the great architect-designer Pierre Charles
L'Enfant beginning in about 1791. The ATP site
was home to a number of mills, including Samuel
Colt's original gun mill. The planned
industrialization of this unique place is a
seminal expression and realization of the
Hamiltonian vision of an industrialized America.
This is truly a founding father's site.
Demolition by
neglect has been a tragic theme in Paterson, and
particularly in the historic district, which is
listed as a priority 1 threatened landmark area
by the Secretary of the Interior. The ATP site
is home to decaying mills and ruins, and because
of this condition, it is being partially
rehabilitated by $1.67 million of federal Urban
History Initiative funds, administered by the
Philadelphia office of the National Park Service
(NPS). The proposed work will include demolition
and site clearing, archeology, and
rehabilitation of historic properties. This work
and the proposed housing development are
receiving a Sec. 106 review with full
consultation by the Advisory Council on Historic
Preservation.
The
project's proponents have yet to answer properly
some very basic questions about the impact and
possible adverse effects on archeological
resources or to even consider whether a housing
development with acres of parking is appropriate
for an industrial NHL. During demolition,
generic archeological monitoring is the only
type of work that currently is scheduled in the
budget. Without funds for mitigation or
conservation, it can almost be guaranteed that
crisis management archeology will cause delays
and encourage the loss of misidentified and
undiscovered resources.
To better
understand the history of the ATP site, the NPS
completed a study called the Maxman Report in
1996. This report, which was a preliminary guide
for preservation and archeology, has been used
inappropriately as a benchmark for development.
It fails to identify two 150-ft. long stone-arch
tailrace culverts which have visible brownstone
openings at the river. The most glaring error is
the misidentification of an intact mill building
as being constructed in 1915, when it clearly is
a ca. 1840-50 mill. This mill will be demolished
according to the developers' proposed plan.
Another serious
concern is that the developer wants to install
approximately 50,000 yds. of fill, up to depths
of 13 ft., on the east half of the ATP site. The
forces from compaction and the weight of the
fill could damage archeological resources,
including the two tailrace culverts. It would
permanently preclude the reopening of the head-
and tailraces for interpretation and education,
and it would flatten the industrial landscape
and destroy the visual understanding of the use
and development of the power canal's third tier.
This is a unique area where mills were built in
relationship to the natural terrain, which made
possible the use of waterpower. The very reason
for Paterson's existence!
Now that it is
becoming apparent that historic preservation
issues might interfere with the proposed housing
project, many residents feel that the city
administration and the developer created this
dilemma by signing an agreement to construct the
townhouses before the completion of the historic
reports or archeological investigations. City
officials are attempting to put into place an
agreement with the NPS that gives them power to
control which historic resources will be
demolished or retained. To date, the city has
shown a lack of responsibility and allowed the
developer to perform test excavations without
the supervision of an archeologist. In one
instance, the developer dug test pits with a
tracked backhoe through sensitive archeological
areas. These test pits were 20 ft.-deep and 20
feet long!
We are
confronted with issues of national importance.
If the City of Paterson and the developer are
able to subvert the importance of archeology on
a publicly owned site in a threatened NHL
district with federal funding created especially
for historic preservation and archeology, then a
precedent will be set that will lower national
standards.
The Sec. 106
review is still taking place and provides for
full public involvement. Through this process,
we have an opportunity to have a meaningful
influence on the future of this site and the
national perception of urban industrial history.
Please write the NPS to make your opinion known.
We need help because the archeology can't always
be where the people who care about its
preservation live.
Info: Paterson
Friends of the Great Falls, Inc. 13 1/2 Van
Houten St., Paterson, NJ 07505; (973) 225-0826;
fax 225-0011; Website: PatersonGreatFalls.org
Consultation packages may be received by
writing: Paterson / UHI, NPS, Cultural
Resources, U.S. Custom House, 3rd Fl., Second
and Chestnut Sts., Philadelphia, PA 19106
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