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Watchung Reservation Walk, Station-to-Station
PASSAIC RIVER WALK, STATION-TO-STATION
The Passaic River winds through a wide range of scenic, historical, industrial, and residential landscapes on its ninety-mile course to the sea. Exploring the river in its entirety is nearly impossible on foot because only small sections have accessible parks or trail systems. A pedestrian must be ready for a journey that offers only occasional glimpses of the river, usually from bridge crossings, while moving through the neighborhoods that line its banks. This walk visits three majestic and moving places contained in a single day of walking: the Great Falls, the city of Paterson, and a precolonial stone weir.
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The Walk: When you arrive at Paterson Station, walk to Market Street and take a left toward the one tall modern glass building. As you walk down Market Street, foot traffic increases and historical architecture abounds. Market Street bends at Washington Street, and in the distance you can see the start of the mill district and Garret Mountain. Where Market Street ends on Spruce Street, take a right and you are just a few blocks from the Great Falls of the Passaic. At the corner of McBride Avenue there is a small National Parks Headquarters with a few vitrines, postcards, and well-informed parks staff. Across the street is the parking lot and picnic area facing the Great Falls. A hundred years ago, when the falls were a wildly popular tourist destination, this was the vantage point used for the postcards. Before heading up and over the falls, consider walking a block down McBride Avenue and taking a left onto the trail along the dry canal. The trail has several footpaths that lead to a batch of factory ruins with very impressive street art. Remove the garbage piles and it is a ready-made outdoor museum. The footpaths lead back to the picnic area. Continue up the hill and over the falls. The pedestrian bridge over the falls is a fantastic vantage point and has been one of the main attractions since the falls became a destination. The newly redesigned park on the top of the falls also lets visitors get close to the edge. Continue on toward the street and bear right down the paved bike path. There is a short dirt path that leads to the Passaic River and if the water level is low enough, you can edge around for a view of the base of the falls. The paved bike path continues along the river and through the Valley of the Rocks, which is now overgrown but still holds true to its name. The path turns into Ryle Road and the first intersection is at Ryle Avenue.
Paterson Walking Route City Street or Path Passaic River Train Station
Take a right here and then shortly another right onto West Broadway and over the Passaic River. After passing Memorial Drive, turn left onto Broadway, and after one mile turn left onto Madison Avenue. The city of Paterson is built on a hill rounded on three sides by the Passaic River. Walking down Madison Avenue gives you an understanding of the topography. There are also buses frequently running down Madison if you want a lift. After about a mile, at Fourth Avenue, turn right and walk down the hill toward the Home Depot. The Passaic River runs along McLean Boulevard. To visit the precolonial stone weir in the river, go left one block to Third Avenue, cross the road toward the river, step over the barrier, and traipse down to the water’s edge. The visibility of the weir changes with the seasons. During the spring you might see only a few ripples from the larger stones but by summer it becomes very apparent. The fall months usually bring very low water levels and one can walk out to the center of the river where the two arms of the weir channel the water through a narrow passage. It is a true monument of the Passaic. Back on McLean, walk toward the Home Depot and take a left over the bridge onto Fair Lawn Avenue. The ironwork on the bridge is fantastic and so are the views of the river from the pedestrian walkway. Fair Lawn Avenue is a straight shot to the historic Radburn Train Station, just over a mile from the bridge.
INDEX Artifacts & Photographic Spreads
SANDY HOOK
Porcelain Plate Fragment with Ocean Scene
20 Shard from Bottle of Congress Water 24 Uniform Button, 13th Field Artillery Regiment, World War I 29 Bittersweet Frame 30–31 Brass Bullet Shell (left) Bullet without Casing (right) 34 Fishing Lure, Bite Marks 40
WATCHUNG RESERVATION
Plastic Bug 54 Porcelain Transferware Fragment with Leaf Pattern 57 Late Autumn in Blue Brook Valley 62–63 Deer Tooth 64
Porcelain Doll Head, German 67
THE GREAT SWAMP
Sliced Base of a Christmas Tree
Split Logs, Woodpecker Holes Remains of an Enamel Bowl 86
90–91
94
PASSAIC RIVER
Willow Ware, Bridge Scene 108 Venus of the Passaic (Porcelain Pincushion Half-doll) 112 Plastic Tractor with Headless Driver 115 Sawed, Hollowed-out Bone 118 Roadside View of Lower Passaic 124–125 Clay Skeet Fragments Porcelain Plate Fragment, Floral Design 128 132
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Melanie Cohn
On behalf of the Visual Arts Center, I’d like to express our deepest gratitude to the many people whose talent, effort, and enthusiasm contributed to the success of this book and exhibition.
Our thanks go to Matthew Jensen, whose artwork opens up new ways of experiencing the world around us. Those of us working with Matt have learned the power of observation. Once you have spent time with Matt and his work, you discover the joy of looking more closely, especially at those things most familiar to you.
Thanks also go to everyone who contributed to this publication. We were fortunate and honored to work with a stellar group of authors—Ian Frazier, Tyler J. Kelley, Ruth Canstein Yablonsky, Karl Fenske, and Hazel England. Along with Curator Mary Birmingham, who wrote on Jensen’s work, each brought an insight that makes this book a great joy to read. We are also indebted to Matt Barteluce and Paper Crown Press (in Guttenberg, New Jersey), who co-published and designed this beautiful volume. This book would not have reached completion without the dedication of these individuals.
We are very grateful to the staffs of the Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge; the Gateway National Recreation Area, Sandy Hook Unit; and the Watchung Reservation. Special acknowledgment is owed to Pete McCarthy and John Warren at Gateway National Recreation Area, Sandy Hook Unit, for their early support of this project.
Matt Jensen wishes to thank Jesús López for editing, troubleshooting, and moral support, and Mia Fineman, Thomas Padon, and Eugenie Tsai for their support and encouragement with the project. He also wants to recognize all those who have made it possible for him to work in parks over the years.
As always, the team at the Visual Arts Center of New Jersey has worked tirelessly to bring this exhibition and book together. Thank you to the staff and board of the center, with special thanks to Mary Birmingham, who curated the show, Assistant Curator Katherine Murdock, and Grants Coordinator Bonnie-Lynn Nadzeika for over two years of guidance and assistance.
We are indebted to the many funders who have made this book and exhibition possible. We thank the National Endowment for the Arts for their support of the exhibition; the Elizabeth Firestone Graham Foundation for their support of this book; the Union County Office of Cultural and Heritage Affairs for their programming support; and the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation and Peter S. Reed Foundation, whose support allowed Jensen to complete this work.
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY Matthew Jensen
Matthew Jensen (b. 1980) lives in Brooklyn, New York. Jensen’s site-specific projects and walks have been supported and commissioned by the High Line in New York, the Queens Museum, the Kenpoku Art Festival in Japan, the Brandywine River Museum of Art in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, the Delaware Contemporary in Wilmington, the Storm King Art Center in New Windsor, New York, Wave Hill in the Bronx, and the Brooklyn Bridge Park, among others. In 2016 he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in photography and a Peter S. Reed Foundation grant for photography. He has received support from the National Endowment for the Arts for his projects Park Wonder (2016) and The Wilmington Center for the Study of Local Landscape (2013). His solo show Feels Like Real debuted in 2015 at Yancey Richardson Gallery in New York. Jensen’s photographs are in major public collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and the Brooklyn Museum.
This book is published in conjunction with the exhibition Matthew Jensen: Park Wonder, on view at the Visual Arts Center of New Jersey, April 14 – July 23, 2017.
Major support for the Visual Arts Center of New Jersey is provided in part by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts/Department of State, a Partner Agency of the National Endowment for the Arts, the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, the WJS Foundation, the Wilf Family Foundations, and Art Center members and donors.
This publication and exhibition is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts. Funding for this publication has been provided in part by the Elizabeth Firestone Graham Foundation.
Co-published by:
68 Elm Street Summit, New Jersey 07901 P 908.273.9121 www.artcenternj.org
© 2017 Visual Arts Center of New Jersey All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the VACNJ, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
Photography and maps by Matthew Jensen www.jensen-projects.com
Book design by Matt Barteluce Edited by Casey Ruble Printed by GHP Media, West Haven, CT
Edition of 500
ISBN: 978-0-925915-55-9 Paper Crown Press, 6903 Jackson St. Guttenberg, New Jersey 07093 P 201.868.8585 www.papercrown.press
