About Us

Our organization serves as the Friends of the Paterson National Park. Community leaders and National Park Service officials called for a new non-profit organization to help launch the Paterson National Park and enhance its educational, social, and economic benefits for Paterson and the nation. That’s why we formed the Hamilton Partnership for Paterson.

During the coming years we will expand this website to share educational materials, updated plans for the Park and its surrounding neighborhood, news, local events, and information for visitors from near and afar. There will be community programs seeking your views on how to make a better National Park, what kind of development you would like to see around the Park, and how the Park can stimulate other projects that improve the quality of life in Paterson.

Our audiences are as diverse as Paterson and America today. We will try to strike the right balance between issues of local, regional and national interest. We will expand community outreach and add more Spanish and Arabic translations to this website. And we will work closely with other Paterson nonprofit organizations. We also hope you will share your interests and ideas, lend your support, and tell us how we can improve our efforts.

Leonard A. Zax
President Emeritus, Hamilton Partnership for Paterson

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Mission:
A National Park for Paterson

Our mission is to enhance the educational, social, and economic benefits of the Paterson Great Falls National Historical Park for the City, the State, and the Nation.

Education

The National Park is much more than just landscaped real estate. It is the educational content and programming that will determine whether the Paterson National Park realizes its extraordinary potential. Our Mill Mile self-guided walking tour and audio tour smartphone app are already engaging Paterson residents and visitors of all ages in the city’s history in new ways that speak to the times in which we live.

Collaboration

The Hamilton Partnership draws its name from Paterson’s illustrious founder, Alexander Hamilton, and his visionary establishment of Paterson as America’s first planned industrial city in 1792. We add the word “partnership” becacuse it is a core value in the way we work. The challenges Paterson residents face go beyond the capacity of any single nonprofit organization or level of government, and the Hamilton Partnership works to improve the quality of life in Paterson through close collaboration with other nonprofit organizations and government officials.

Advocacy

To help create the Paterson National Park, the Hamilton Partnership organized the support of distinguished scholars and organizations, including the National Trust for Historic Preservation, National Parks Conservation Association, Sierra Club, as well as local community groups. As the Park Service completes plans for the National Park, we continue to be vigorous advocates for the best possible park and the funding to build and maintain it.