Where others see a weed-overgrown concrete oval, its stands scrawled with graffiti, we see a key to unlocking one of our most vivid and creative American stories.
We see great athletic feats on the field and roaring crowds in sunlit stands-those in the past and those to come. We see people of every faith and nationality struggling through hard times. We see them then-working-class kids and the parents who supported them-trying to make it, through poverty, recession, war and every kind of trouble that trickles down from the mighty to the little guy. We see the same struggles now. And we see what a place can do for the spirit.
Our goal is to protect the living history of this remarkable space and have it recognized as the National Treasure it is. But also to be a community partner in helping restore it as a working, linchpin piece of a vital North Jersey urban community. We want to keep this great place alive-by keeping its history alive and by helping re-vision its future in the larger setting of the city and the region.
The story this Stadium tells is about sticking together, working together, playing together, taking chances together. It's a story full of lessons about sportsmanship and athleticism and sound minds in sound bodies. About defying prejudice and judging people (as Martin Luther King once said) "not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."
But most of all it's a story about getting beyond defeat.
Hinchliffe Stadium is a time-capsule of America in the twentieth century, but it doesn't have to end there. It can be a triumphant story we make as well as one we inherit. It is memory and it is vision. The bright walls and green fields that once glowed here with the hope the young gave to the future can do it again in a new century.
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The Friends of Hinchliffe Stadium is a 501(c)3 organization. Donations are tax-deductible. For further information, please write to us at P.O Box 6451, Paterson, NJ, 07505 or phone 973-773-8646 (Brian LoPinto) Steering Committee: Flavia Alaya, Christopher Coke, Brian LoPinto
Hinchliffe Stadium is on the New Jersey and National Registers of Historic Places