This park was once home to drug dealers. Now, $2 million later, it’s ‘the best park in Paterson’

Editor’s note: This is the fifth in a series of stories about Paterson parks where city officials have spent millions of dollars on renovations over the past five years.

PATERSON — When Luis Palacio’s three grandchildren come to visit him, he always takes them to Grace Buckley Park, which he says is the best park in Paterson.

“The kids love it,” he said. “They ask to come here.”

This is the outcome city officials could only hope for after investing about $2 million in Buckley Park over the past five years.

Last year mayor Andre Sayegh a basketball court unveiled which bears the name of local hoop star Essence Carson. More recently, the city spent $500,000 on new playground equipment. In 2019, the city spent more than $1 million to revitalize the playing fields used by John F. Kennedy High School’s sports teams.

Paterson Press has been visiting the city’s parks over the past two months to assess the Sayegh government’s $100 million investment in recreational spaces.

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“As a parent you want to make sure your kids are safe – you have to go with the feel of the park,” said Gina Gomez, who just moved to Paterson from Bergen County and came to the park with her 9-year-old . daughter and 7-year-old stepchild. “I wish more parks in Paterson looked like this. It’s a rare gem. For many children, the park is all they have.”

While some may find Grace Buckley Park’s upgrades expensive, Palacio says the investment saves families in the long run by providing a free place to take children. “If you have to go somewhere else for recreation, you have to spend money,” Palacio said.

The park – named after Grace Buckley, secretary of the city Parks Commission for 32 years – opened in 1964. Then-Mayor Frank Graves wanted to give the community back the public space that was taken when some of the city’s parks were taken. Westside Park was used for the construction of Kennedy High School, the This is reported by the Paterson Evening News.

However, in the decades that followed, the park, along with the surrounding neighborhoods, fell on hard times. Jaemile Barnes, 32, who was at the park with his three-year-old niece on a recent Saturday afternoon, grew up near here and remembers a “problematic” place that was “contaminated” with drugs.

“As a kid, that was all I saw,” he said.

More: After a $1.3 million makeover, Paterson’s Lou Costello Park is safer and more likely to attract children than addicts

As the situation in Grace Buckley Park improved, so did the entire neighborhood. Barnes credits the turnaround to Augie Feola, who founded Paterson’s Police Athletic League in 1991 and moved the organization’s headquarters to a building in the park.

“He pushed for this park – always going to council meetings for it and trying to make the park look like this,” Barnes said. “He made sure there were lights on when I wanted to practice, and gave me an edge when I asked for it.”

Feola agreed that he was a squeaky wheel at city council meetings. But he also did hands-on work in Buckley, clearing overgrown shrubs to improve the view of the park that used to mask illegal behavior, and even shoveling snow in the winter.

“We got rid of some of the drug dealers who were hanging out there – and little by little the park became what it is today,” Feola said.

Still, the secret to turning around the park’s fortunes was something much simpler, he said. “The key to keeping the park safe is having people there,” Feola told Paterson Press.

Although Feola’s organization closed last year due to a lack of funding, his legacy lives on in the gratitude of residents who visit Grace Buckley Park. Barnes remembers the day around 2015 when his mother told him, “The neighborhood is different.”

“If you want to take your kids to the park and not have to worry about drive-by shootings or gun violence or anything else, come to this park,” Barnes said. “We just don’t have those problems here.”

Barnes, a standout athlete at Kennedy High School, was grateful that teenagers used the once dilapidated basketball courts.

“This park wasn’t known for having a lot of kids on the field,” Barnes said as he watched a three-on-three half-court game. “Every time a hoop breaks or a net gets lost, there’s someone up there to fix it.”

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Grace Buckley Park now the ‘best park’ in Paterson NJ