You are HERE: Friends of Hinchliffe Stadium, Paterson, New Jersey, Facebook version--We are building a dedicated network of support for restoring and re-using this great stadium, a former home of great Negro League baseball--in fact some of the greatest!
Hinchliffe Stadium is a 10,000 seat horseshoe-shaped arena, poised dramatically above Paterson's landmark Great Falls at the corner of Maple Av and Liberty Place in Paterson's Totowa section (it can easily be found using those coordinates on any map-site).
The stadium was built largely in 1931-32, with seating and amenities added 1932-34. It was slightly modified again in 1963-4 when ownership passed from the City to the Paterson Schools, and "upgraded" twenty years later under Mayor Frank Graves, adding astroturf and fiberglass seating.
Hinchliffe Stadium, built in 1932 (that's a picture postcard of it up there, of its very first Thanksgiving Day football game!), is an historic gem. It is THE LAST NEGRO LEAGUES STADIUM LEFT IN THE METRO AREA, now that Yankee Stadium is gone. And in fact, Hinchliffe and Yankee Stadium were sister stadiums for Negro League play: the Black Yankess used both stadiums in the 30s and early '40s.
We want to save Hinchliffe Stadium for the people of Paterson, the kids of Paterson, and the future of the region. We continue to work to get the Paterson Schools (who own the stadium) and the City (which used to own it, and now would like to restore it) to build a consensus around a future plan. We have already generated over a million in grants, built a restroation.stabilization program, and are aiming to get under way in 2013.
The Friends' previous grants put the stadium on the National Register (2004), made it eligible for preservation funding and gave it a presence on the web (2005). Our NJ Trust grant to do a professional assessment determined what it will take to repair and adapt it to the uses of the 21st century, and we now have a baseline amount of $1M to start that process.
Can you help? Go To hinchliffestadium.org and donate via Paypal! Hinchliffe Stadium and the future of sport in the North Jersey region need you!
"Products"? A stadium for the people and a monument to Paterson's openness to all people: Hinchliffe sent a message of integrated baseball from the day players first walked out onto the field and fans mixed it up in the stands. Seating was never segregated. Play was segregated only because the leagues declared it that way, but Hinchliffe Stadium said: "Play here, and play anybody you want," from Day One in the summer of 1932, even before official opening. Another major stroke for freedom was its recognition of women in sports--the central feature of its opening dedication, at which not only were women's track and field events the featured event, but the City dedicated a bronze plaque to its "favorite daughter" and star Olympic-qualified runner, Eleanor Egg.
