NJ.com

By Jerry Walker

Growing up and living in the Lafayette Section of Jersey City, Liberty State Park has always been a part of my life.

When I was young, we played at Liberty State Park and walked across the bridge to Ellis Island, which was our clubhouse, long before the historic landmark was revitalized. Times have changed and so has the surrounding neighborhood and the needs of its people. Jersey City has seen massive development over the years with more housing units built to accommodate its growing population. The city prides itself on being among the most diverse in the nation with some 23 different languages spoken.

With an increasingly diverse population come diverse needs and demands for recreational opportunities for residents of all ages.

We need more outlets for active recreation, not just passive recreation. People in our community like to jog and ride bikes, but also play sports to get in shape like basketball, football, soccer, field hockey, rugby and cricket. We would love a place to swim or ice skate. Pickleball is the nation’s hottest sport, but we have nowhere in Jersey City to play.

We need facilities for afterschool programming to keep kids active, engaged and off the streets. We need fields for our school teams with adequate seating.

Liberty State Park is the only available area in our densely populated city to address the community’s needs. Unfortunately, the park has had no improvements in five decades. We have two children’s playgrounds for a 600-acre park and two expensive restaurants that the community from the south side of Jersey City can’t afford.

Some 250 acres in the park’s interior remain contaminated and fenced off. The $50 million to clean the contamination and return the land for public use from a lawsuit against Exxon has been available since 2011, yet the DEP sits idle.

Central Park is the epicenter of New York City and the most iconic park in the world with amphitheaters, athletic fields, a zoo, basketball courts, nature trails, an ice rink that now hosts pickleball courts in the summer, and activities for everyone. On the other hand, Liberty State Park is just a large swath of open land with beautiful views of Manhattan but not much else to do beyond taking the ferry to Liberty and Ellis islands.

Our time is now. We have the opportunity to create a modern, inclusive, vibrant, and accessible Central Park right here in Jersey City — to make Liberty State Park not just our Central Park, but a national model for urban, community parks and the envy of the world. New Jersey deserves no less!

A plan unveiled by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection ignores the community’s needs. Yes, it adds a new community center and ballfields, but the DEP shoves active recreational facilities along an industrial tract far from park entrances and public transit and inaccessible to the very people who would use them.

The DEP also plans to flood 160 acres of the interior to create swamp and marshlands. With the threat of rising sea levels and more severe, frequent storms from climate change, bringing water in Liberty State Park threatens flooding to the park and surrounding communities. We experienced it firsthand after Superstorm Sandy; I lost power for 11 days and the park was six feet underwater. There is no logic in introducing more water into an existing flood zone when Liberty State Park is already surrounded by water on three sides.

The ideal solution is to elevate the park to create a natural flood barrier, allowing water to run back off into New York Harbor. This is the people’s park. We deserve better.

We deserve a revitalized Liberty State Park that benefits the entire community — not just a select few. We want clean, open public spaces with recreational opportunities for everybody. At 600 acres, Liberty State Park has enough space to do it all — preserve natural habitats and provide the amenities our community so desperately needs. We want and deserve our Central Park!

It’s been a 50-year fight to level the playing field, but I’m energized that for the first time the entire Jersey City community is involved in the process and rallying with a strong, collective voice, demanding more from the State. It’s time our elected officials listen and answer the people’s call.

Jerry Walker is a Hudson County commissioner and the founder of Team Walker, a non-profit working in Jersey City to improve the quality of life for children through academic and recreational programs.