Paterson's Great Falls Festival returns to build on 50 years of riverside revelry

In the heart of Paterson, streets close on Labor Day weekend to celebrate the nation's first planned industrial center and the falls that powered it.

The tradition, known as the Great Falls Festival, regularly brings tens of thousands of people to the 89‐acre National Historic District to revel in food, free entertainment and fireworks.

In many ways, the festival is the same as it was when it started in 1971 to commemorate the historic district designation. That festival, however, was turned up to 10. The day's events started with Gov. William Cahill opening a new footbridge over the falls before a crowd of 6,000 in a new 3-acre park. It ended with a performance by jazz great Duke Ellington and his orchestra at Hinchliffe Stadium. In between, a motorcyclist traversed the falls on a tightrope with an acrobat suspended below to serve as a counterbalance.

Through the 2000s, the festival regularly drew 30,000 to more than 50,000 people over the three-day weekend to see daredevils brave the falls in a variety of ways. The falls, created by retreating glaciers, have impressed visitors for centuries due to their combination of height and flow.

Discharging about 2,675 cubic feet of water per second on average, the falls are massive but still far behind others east of the Mississippi. The Great Falls of Maryland, Cohoes Falls in New York and the international tourist hub known as Niagara Falls all easily outrank it. Its height, often inflated to as much as 77 feet in estimates, ranks behind a gaggle of Eastern falls. It is nonetheless high enough to awe.

Performers at the Great Falls Festival saw it as a stage. Trapeze artists hung by the teeth from helicopters hovering above. Motorcycle riders and tightrope walkers, such as Karl Wallenda (1971) and his grandson Tino (1991), crossed the chasm on a high wire. No festival act, however, repeated "The Jersey Jumper" Sam Patch's September 1827 leap from the falls into the Passaic River below.

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In the mid-1970s, the daredevil displays were coveted by then-Mayor Lawrence Kramer, who contracted Philippe Petit to cross the river soon after the Frenchman's illegal tightrope walk between New York City's Twin Towers in 1974. "The crowds will eat it up," Kramer told The Record that August.

Despite its success, the festival was axed by Mayor Frank Graves Jr. in 1982 due to economic hardship. It returned at a smaller scale in 1991 under then-Mayor and now-Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr., who told The Record that the festival "pumps life back into the district." Hardships, whether financial, environmental or logistical, led to more cancellations in the early to mid-2000s and 2010s.

Modern festivals have been molded as street fairs, with exhibitions, performances and a bevy of food vendors. People became the attraction. The falls and the park faded into the background. Even when federal officials designated the Great Falls a national park in 2011, the chance to refocus went by the wayside as the follow-up festival was canceled.In the 1970s, festivals were promotions for Paterson and the potential to revitalize Silk City. Tours highlighted the historic district conceived by U.S. Founding Father Alexander Hamilton and designed by Washington, D.C.'s, architect, Pierre Charles L'Enfant.

More:Federal grant will spur restoration of Paterson's Great Falls raceway canals

During those tours, visitors and residents alike were taken to Samuel Colt's gun factory, where the first revolver was manufactured in 1856, and the Rogers, Ketchum & Grosvenor plant that produced the trains featured in the Civil War's great locomotive chase. Both were powered by a series of locks and waterways that spun watermills powered by the falls and the river's flow.

Those waterways could one day flow again, as National Park Service officials in 2021 announced plans to spend $1.5 million on restoration projects for the upper raceway section, Paterson Press reported. The middle and lower levels would need millions in additional investment, however, to bring life back to the system.

The 2022 Great Falls Festival will keep McBride Avenue closed from the Walker Street intersection to the intersection of Mill and Van Houten streets through the extended Labor Day weekend. The Wayne Avenue Bridge and Spruce Street to the Market Street intersection will also be closed.

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Paterson NJ Great Falls Festival returns Labor Day weekend