New National Park

A new national park may emerge from a small patch of lush oasis just 15 miles from Manhattan in northeastern New Jersey's industrial mecca.
The U.S. house passed a bill Wednesday that designates Paterson's Great Falls as a national park. It now goes to President Barack Obama, who is expected to sign it as early as next week.
The bill comes two years after the National Park Service, under the Bush administration, declined to recommend protected status for the Great Falls.
The state has sought national park status for the 77-foot waterfall for years, in hopes that doing so would help attract more visitors to the site. The Great Falls is the second largest waterfall on the East Coast.
A national park designation would also make the area eligible for millions of dollars in federal funds. Exactly how much the state will get to run the park has yet to be determined.
"We have finally done it," said Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr., a Paterson native who introduced the bill along with Sen. Frank Lautenberg. "The approval of this national park by Congress clears the way for President Obama's signature and marks a historic moment for the city of Paterson and the state of New Jersey."
New Jersey has 13 national parks and 51 state parks. The Great Falls National Historical Park will cover about 35 acres in Paterson, the state's third largest city.
Considered the birthplace of the American Industrial Revolution, the Great Falls once provided its water to generate power to run mills that produced silk, locomotives, aircraft engines and guns.
In 1778, Alexander Hamilton first visited the falls and noted its waterpower potential for industrial development. Years later, as the country's first treasury secretary, he selected the site to become the nation's first planned industrial city.
The Rogers Locomotive Works and the Allied Textile Printing site — where the first Colt .45 revolvers were manufactured — constructed their products with help from power from the falls.
The area was named a National Historic District in 1976.
Jeff Tittel, executive director of the New Jersey chapter of the Sierra Club, lauded the bill to make the park a national treasure.
"We tend to save monuments of the rich and famous, and we need to save the historical sites of the people who actually built America," he said. "Paterson's Great Falls — that's where America was made."

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