‘This place was golden’: Hundreds celebrate Hinchliffe Stadium reopening
PATERSON — In a city looking for hope, more than 500 people celebrated the reopening of Hinchliffe Stadium on Friday, sharing memories and pride at a historic ballpark that — much like Paterson — had fallen on hard times.
Crumbling and neglected, Hinchliffe Stadium had been shut down for 27 years before Mayor Andre Sayegh crafted a $105 million rehabilitation project that also includes senior citizen housing and a parking garage.
“This puts Paterson in the win column,” the mayor proclaimed during Friday’s three-hour marathon ribbon-cutting ceremony, an event that listed 28 speakers with a few others added at the last minute. “This is a victory for history.”
The mayor’s invited guests — a group that seemed like a Who’s Who of Passaic County politics — sat in folding chairs on the field’s artificial turf during the parade of speeches, while several hundred folks without VIP status looked on from the grandstands.
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Many in the stands came for nostalgia, a chance to relive the Thanksgiving football games, high school graduations and other special events that shaped their lives.
“This place was golden back in the day,” said Jewel Thomas, 58, who graduated from John F. Kennedy High School at the stadium in 1983. “It brings tears to your eyes.”
Earlier: Paterson hearts 'go faster' as Hinchliffe Stadium finally reopens
Thomas was accompanied by her 73-year-old husband, Perry, who had tubes pumping oxygen from a portable tank into his nostrils.
“I had to see this,” Perry Thomas said, explaining why he came to Hinchliffe despite his medical condition.
Nearby was Eric McKenzie, who hadn’t been inside Hinchliffe since his graduation from Eastside High School on June 25, 1986.
“This was the heart of the city,” McKenzie said. “It feels great to be here again.”
Latif Parson, 27, of Paterson was in diapers when Hinchliffe was shut down. When he was growing up, Parson said, he and his friends sometimes snuck inside to play in the abandoned stadium.
“This is the first time I’ve been inside here when it wasn’t in decay,” said Parson, who now works for the National Park Service at Paterson’s Great Falls.
History comes alive: When baseball returns to Hinchliffe Stadium, players will retrace steps of legends
Hinchliffe was in jeopardy of being demolished two decades ago. But stadium supporters got Hinchliffe designated a national landmark, providing the building protection against the wrecking ball even as many attempts to renovate the ballpark failed.
The landmark status came because of Hinchliffe’s legacy as one of only two ballparks still standing from the segregation-era Negro Baseball League. Hall of Famers like Josh Gibson, Satchel Paige, Cool Papa Bell and Paterson’s own Larry Doby played there.
Annie Jelks, who watched Friday’s speeches from her wheelchair in the grandstand, used to come to Hinchliffe for Negro League games. Her late husband, Julian Osibee Jelks, had been one of the umpires.
“It brings back a lot of memories,” said Jelks, who is a little younger than the stadium, which first opened in 1932.
Jelks’ husband had attended an event outside Hinchliffe about nine years ago when officials unveiled a United States Postal stamp honoring Doby, said the couple’s daughter, Frances Jelks-Brown, who lives in Hackensack.
One member of the family, Randal Jelks, traveled from Kansas to be at Friday’s event. He was moved by hearing the names of the African Americans who played at Hinchliffe during the speeches.
“My father knew all those players,” said Jelks, who teachers African American studies at Kansas University.
As part of the reconstruction project, the developers included a small museum that will have exhibits about the Negro Leagues. That building, which also will include a food court, is supposed to open in the fall.
Among the speakers on Friday were Harold Reynolds of the MLB Network and New York Yankees executive Omar Minaya. Whoopi Goldberg was the guest speaker.
“Black women played baseball, but we never hear about them,” said the actress and comedian, who talked about Hinchliffe with Sayegh and his wife, Farhanna, when she hosted them at her home for dinner last year.
“I said, ‘When you do this, when you build this museum, make sure you include the," Goldberg said of female baseball players. “This is America’s pastime, not a men’s pastime.”
Sayegh is touting the Hinchliffe project as one of the cornerstones of his plan to revitalize Paterson. The New Jersey Jackals minor league baseball team has made Hinchliffe its home under a multi-year contract with the stadium's developers. The Jackals play their first game at Hinchliffe on Saturday night.
Goldberg, during her speech said the reopening of Hinchliffe was one of the “amazing things happening in Paterson” that get overshadowed by negative news stories.
“This is the kind of moment I’d like to see more of,” Goldberg said of Friday’s event.
Joe Malinconico is editor of Paterson Press. Email: editor@patersonpress.com
This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Paterson NJ Hinchliffe Stadium is officially open
