Experiment successful. The first farmers market came to James J. Braddock North Hudson County Park this year for a trial run, and the public embraced it heartily. The season ended on Sunday, Aug. 11 with a community event featuring a cooking demonstration and live music.
“It was a really good turnout this year,” said Richard Nolasco of Nolasco Farms, from Andover, New Jersey, the produce vendors for the market. “Next season maybe we can look forward to extending it a little more.”
“People are learning about it every day so today was a really great day,” said Keagan Francis of Hoboken Farms, vendors of fresh breads, meats, and cheeses at more than 30 markets statewide. Many of his bins were empty by the end of the event.
The farmers market was first championed by Anthony Vainieri, who took office as Hudson County freeholder on Jan. 1 of this year and immediately set about revamping and reinvigorating the park.
He brought in the Washington Park Association, who were experienced in farmers markets, and President Nick Caballero arranged the Braddock market at the traffic circle in the park every Sunday. Rotating vendors joined Nolasco Farms, selling foods and products to an appreciative public.
“Anthony has wanted to do this since the day he took office,” said North Bergen Mayor and State Sen. Nicholas Sacco. “It bettered my expectations. People asked me if it can it go longer but this is the trial run.”
“The park looks totally different. And it’s being used differently.” –Nicholas Sacco
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New Veteran’s Park and ball fields to open soon
The market is just one of numerous initiatives taking place in the park. Since taking office, Vainieri has pushed for numerous improvements. “The park looks totally different,” said Sacco. “And it’s being used differently.”
The “dust bowl” at the north corner of the park near 90th Street was among the first issues tackled. Formerly a dirt field, it is being transformed in a passive Veteran’s Park, with an opening planned for the fall.
Sports games displaced from the field will soon take place on the new sports field being constructed to the southeast, near Palisades Avenue. The massive field is divided into one baseball diamond, two softball diamonds, and a pair of soccer fields, one of which is striped for football.
“We can actually run tournaments now,” said Vainieri. “We can have two soccer games at once, and another right across the street in the Bruins soccer field. We can have three soccer games simultaneously.”
Drainage pipes beneath the artifical turf will ensure that rain is siphoned off immediately, allowing for quick return to play. Football goal posts are removable, allowing for multiple uses of the field. Twelve banks of high intensity lights ensure games can be held at any time.
“We’re the first ones in New Jersey to have those lights,” said Vainieri. “I never knew the sophistication of lighting. They diagram it out and they have graphs where the light hits. Because we didn’t want the spillage on the sidewalk”
New bathrooms are currently under construction. The field is tentatively slated to open later this month.
A place to go for art, food, and nature
Several new food vendors now sell burgers, freshly grilled corn, and more at the traffic circle. Previously a hot dog wagon and ice cream truck parked there randomly. “We needed more vendors in the park,” said Vainieri. “People wanted to get something to eat. So we got more permits out, and these guys are here seven days a week all year round.”
Yoga classes take place year-round inside the lake house on Tuesday nights and Friday mornings, with children’s classes to be added soon. “It’s paid for by the county so it’s free,” said instructor Karuna Henao, who also sold crafts at the farmers market. “You just show up. It’s best to be there at least five to ten minutes before because classes are starting to fill up.”
Visit mastaniarts.com for a complete schedule of classes.
“There was an art festival here recently, which was really wonderful,” said local resident Olga Rogachevskaya. The first annual Braddock Park Arts Festival, coordinated by the Guttenberg Arts Gallery on June 14, saw the landscape filled with art and artists from near and far. Children were encouraged to partipate in interactive crafts and steamrollers were used to create huge block prints. Art from the event has since appeared in other towns as a traveling display.
“I’m an artist myself so I can really appreciate that,” said Rogachevskaya, who emigrated from Kharkov, Ukraine in 1998 and has opened her own studio in Edgewater teaching art to children, teens, and adults. (or-studio.com)
Much of the underbrush throughout the park has been thinned and dead foliage removed. “All the wooded areas here, you couldn’t even see through them,” said Robert Sostre, the new acting park supervisor, who plans to rejuvenate the nature trail in the park. “There were dead trees on the trail itself. We cleaned it out. We did so much work. This was a jungle out here. Now you can walk through it.”
“There are a lot of deer here now,” he continued. “They come from north and they find their way here. We’ve got rabbits, groundhogs, skunks, raccoons, all kinds of animals. I guess they’re used to being around humans. You should see the turtles hang out in the lake. We’ve got thousands of them.”
Closing the year on a high note
Glenn Trickel and Fidel Hernandez, owners of the restaurant Busters NYC, are both residents of Jersey City. The two provided the cooking demo at the season-ending event for the farmers market, using items purchased at the market to prepare a “spatinental” meal.
“Spatinental is our brand of cooking, which is everyday foods with health and wellness in mind,” said Trickel. “We did grass-fed meatballs with a tomato sauce over zucchini noodles. The meatballs are gluten-free because they were made with organic oatmeal. The beef and the chicken that we used for the chicken salad came from Hoboken Farms. And then the greens, the tomatoes, the basil all came from Nolasco Farms.”
Natalie and Mario Chape are natives of North Bergen and Union City, respectively. They run the Big Papa Smoke’m, a regular fixture in the park through the summer.
“My husband’s been a chef for the last 17 years,” said Natalie. “He decided that barbecue was his niche.” Their “pop-up restaurant” was custom made with a grill on one side and a smoker on the other, complete with a built-in sink, electricity, and lights.
“Our meats are smoked for a minimum of 22 hours,” said Natalie. “We use oak wood, cherry wood, and mesquite wood. We plan on coming back here next year. I grew up on 87th Street my whole life so it’s home. It just feels better.”
Music was provided at the event by Walter Parks and Larry Heinemann on guitar and bass. Both have distinguished pedigrees, Parks as a longtime accompanist to Richie Havens and Heinemann as the founding musical director of the Blue Man Group.
“I’m from North Florida. My influence is southern swampy blues,” said Parks, who plays in various configurations throughout the area, including the band Swamp Cabbage. Living in Jersey City Heights, he said, “It’s a growing, budding artist community and Larry and I are happy to be involved in these sorts of things because we feel like it’s helping to establish the heights area specifically as an artist neighborhood.
“We love it,” said Heinemann about the burgeoning local musical scene. “And it’s turned some corner in the last year.” A member of numerous bands himself, including The Get It! and Brian Eno cover band Music for Enophiles, Heinemann is currently at work composing new material for Blue Man Group.
The duo will be playing at Riverview Park in Jersey City Heights this Sunday about 1:30 p.m. “I look at it like it’s a northeastern branch of New Orleans,” said Parks. “We’re trying to put good music in some of the clubs.”
Meanwhile Braddock Park will continue to host events. Vainieri has planned a classic car show for the fall, and is finalizing plans for a four-day carnival and Italian feast over the Columbus Day weekend.
“I plan on doing an activity for children after school starts,” he said. “I want to call it a ‘wheelie day.’ I want to shut down one of the roads and just have the kids do skateboarding, roller blading, and ride their bikes safe in the street. Because there’s really nowhere to ride a bike in town on a street safely.”
A portion of John F. Kennedy Boulevard running through the park will be closed for the event, which will take place in October or November, after the Veteran’s Park is completed and the road alongside it is repaved.
“Then we have things to look forward to next year,” added Vainieri. “We’ll see what took off and what didn’t, and go from there.”
Art Schwartz may be reached at arts@hudsonreporter.com.
SIDEBAR
‘Diversion’ process continues
Opponents decry plan to make trailers permanent in park
The North Bergen town commissioners approved a resolution at their Aug. 19 meeting to submit pre-application paperwork to the DEP for a diversion involving the pre-school trailers in Braddock Park.
Currently the county owns the park. North Bergen leases the land for Bruins Stadium. Situated in the end zone of the stadium are 17 trailers that were installed more than a decade ago as a temporary preschool for about 300 kids. The proposal underway would transfer the land occupied by the preschool from the county to North Bergen.
The diversion agreement, if approved, would allow the Township of North Bergen to take over the land occupied by the preschool in exchange for creating approximately three times as much new parkland elsewhere. The township has identified three locations for this replacement parkland, totaling close to 3.5 acres between them.
Some local residents, however, are up in arms about the proposal. As of Sept. 3 more than 1,500 people had signed an online petition at change.org to stop the diversion.
“Braddock Park is for all Hudson County residents and should not be a municipal campus that serves only a few,” reads the petition. “Hudson County is overcrowded with too few parks, thus we need this space.”
The petition goes on to state that “This opens the door for future diversions by North Bergen and other Hudson County towns for other schools or municipal buildings.”
The diversion process is still in its early stages, according to Township Administrator Chris Pianese. The Aug. 19 resolution one of many requirement on a long road to approval for the initiative.
Opponents of the diversion will have opportunities to voice their opinions at public meetings as the process moves forward, he said.