Built in the Great Depression and perched above the majestic Great Falls of Paterson, NJ, Hinchliffe Stadium has a unique foothold in American culture and history.
During its 1930s and ‘40s heyday, coinciding with the segregated Jim Crow era, Hinchliffe played host to significant Negro Leagues baseball. Crowds flocked to see some of the world’s greatest ballplayers – from Josh Gibson to Cool Papa Bell to Monte Irvin and Paterson’s own Larry Doby – many of them denied entry into Organized Baseball only because of their skin color.
The oval-shaped concrete stadium, designed in classic Art Deco style with a 10,000-seat capacity, also served as home for the New York Black Yankees and New York Cubans. But Hinchliffe was also a year-round venue of varied and notable events.
A source of immense civic pride in working-class Paterson, Hinchliffe was a popular gathering ground for semiprofessional football, amateur boxing matches, midget car racing, track and field meets and major musical entertainment.
It often drew overflow crowds for a storied Thanksgiving Day tradition – the cross-city high school football rivalry between Eastside and Central (now Kennedy).
Hinchliffe Stadium’s historic and social significance can never be denied. It is planted to Paterson, established in 1792 as America’s first planned industrial city. It is located within the Great Falls Historic District. And it’s unique for its longtime association with the city’s public school system.
Refurbishing Paterson’s Own Field of Dreams
As with many cities across the nation, Paterson began to experience deindustrialization and an economic decline as the 1960s. Over the following decades this decline led to a deteriorating infrastrucure that included Hinchliffe Stadium. The stadium lapsed into terrible disrepair; the grandstands were overrun with weeds and graffiti, the playing field was a wreck, the stadium’s glorious past became memory. It officially closed its doors in 1996.
Thankfully, Hinchliffe was spared destruction in 2013 when the stadium was designated as a National Historic Landmark, one of the last remaining Negro League ballparks in the country.
In 2019 an ambitous project to renovate Hinchliffe Stadium was led by BAW Development and RPM Development Group. In addition to the stadium, the project includes a nearby senior housing development, child-care facility, parking garage, and the Muth Museum. The project was completed in 2023 and once again serves students from Paterson City Schools and is the home to the New Jersey Jackals. Beginning in 2024, the stadium has hosted a number of other sporting events, including professional soccer, and brings other forms of entertainment back to the stadium.
It also became the nation’s only sporting venue in the National Park System – and is now part of the Paterson Great Falls National Historical Park.
