Hinchliffe Stadium - Later Days

Later Days

At first Hinchliffe, sometimes called "City Stadium," was municipally owned and only managed by the Paterson Schools. In 1963, as the schools assumed full ownership, they undertook an array of repairs and upgrades that included repositioning the baseball diamond and adding fill to the area above and along the river (the "cliff" area, called "The Valley of the Rocks") in order to enlarge the football field and lengthen the track. In the following decades, the stadium did yeoman service for both school sports and major public events, including—from the 1970s on—concerts, antique car shows, and the fireworks displays for the Great Falls Festivals that have become a favorite feature of Paterson's Labor Day celebrations. Duke Ellington held one of his last major concerts here in 1971.

In 1983, the field received another upgrade under Mayor Frank X. Graves, Jr.. These repairs made previously temporary stands permanent, added handicap access and storage facilities, and resulted in the installation of an Astroturf field surface. In 1988 Hinchliffe Stadium became the home of the New Jersey Eagles of the American Soccer League, and the Eagles called the stadium home for two seasons before moving to another venue for their third and final season.

The general decline of the school system in Paterson over the next decade meant the diversion of maintenance resources away from the stadium. Although the facility continued to be used through the 1990s, Hincliffe Stadium fell into further and further disrepair due to underfunding and was eventually closed at the end of the 1996-97 school year and threatened with demolition. This forced Eastside High School and Kennedy High School to play their entire 1997 football seasons on the road and both schools returned to playing in Paterson for the 1998 season at Bauerle Field, located near Eastside High School.

The threat of demolition sparked a new movement to find ways and means of restoring and revitalizing this historic venue. A group of local citizens formed the non-profit Friends of Hinchliffe Stadium, announcing in September 2002, on the 70th anniversary of the stadium's dedication. A month later, Schools Superintendent Edwin Duroy announced a proposal to revitalize the facility into a stadium complex. Under a grant from the Paterson Historic Preservation Commission (HPC) the Friends successfully applied to place the stadium on the State and National Registers of Historic Places (2004). Again with HPC funding, they developed a website that tells Hinchliffe's colorful and illustrious history that was launched in 2006.