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Downtown Paterson and Abandoned Mills

When I visited Paterson in the Summer of 2010, it was a fairly rugged place, with large pockets of poverty amidst the abandoned and repurposed infrastructure. Headed up the hill from the city to Hinchliffe Stadium, I crossed the river downstream of the Great Falls over the West Broadway Bridge (1897).

Walking uphill on Ryle Avenue, I passed the abandoned facilities of the Addy Mills and Columbia Textile Mills, both EPA brownfields sites. I also passed signs advertising The Vistas, a condo development on the bluffs above the river downstream of the falls that appears to have been derailed either by the Great Recession or the crappy neighborhood.