Lower Passaic, WMA 4

Dundee Dam Park and Riverfront Greenway - An Area of Renewed Vision

Passaic River Coalition plans to create an urban park and walkway along the Passaic River in Garfield centering on the historic Dundee Dam. Creation of this park and walkway would be an exciting beginning to the creation of a Lower Passaic River Greenway and serve as another model for the Lower Passaic River Master Planning (LINK) process.

Historic Dundee Dam

Located between Clifton and Garfield, the current Dundee Dam replaced an earlier dam of 1838-40 and was used to generate power for clothing manufacture for the growing number of mills on the Passaic River. The water backed up by the dam covered 70 acres. The biggest engineering feat of its day, it had an immense gate on the Clifton side that could open and shut to control the flow of water into the two-mile-long Dundee Canal also located on the Clifton side of the river.

The Historic Dundee Dam Park and Riverfront Greenway will be located on the eastern shore of the Passaic River near Dundee Dam, where the original industrial sector of Garfield once contributed to the development of Bergen County. The Town of Garfield owns about 10 acres of Riverfront Property and the Passaic River Coalition bought the 1/3-acre Tichacek property.

 (coming soon!)

Creating an Urban Park and Greenway

The Dundee Dam Park and Riverfront Greenway will include a pedestrian walkway and bikeway which will wander along the top of an existing embankment above the Passaic River. There will be strategically placed “lookouts” near vistas and historic sites as well as several ways to access the lower area close to the river. The lookouts will include the Dundee Dam, the Post Ford Revolutionary War Monument (where the British crossed the Passaic River in pursuit of Washington’s troops in 1776), “V-Shaped Weirs”, or rock inlets where Lenni Lenape Indians caught fish in the Passaic River, and ancient Indian petroglyphs on a boulder depicting a bear paw and jumping fish, discovered in 1992. The park will also have decorative lights for night time security, benches, trash receptacles, historic markers, railings, fencing and retaining walls.

Below the riverside park, the City of Garfield intends to build the Historic Dundee Dam Pedestrian Way & Preserve @ Garfield a multi-purpose recreational and educational facility that will uniquely ‘spotlight’ the long-ignored rich historic elements that belong to the area and early Americana.

Riverside Restoration

Integral to the development of the Dundee Dam Park and Riverfront Greenway will be protection and restoration of the riverbank. This will be a key feature for improving the quality of the water of the Passaic River.

Passaic River Coalition proposes hiring a landscape architect to design the vistas, trails, and other landscaping features and an archeologist to investigate the Indian and Colonial relics before ground is broken.   The Dundee Park Riverfront Greenway project will cost $1,409,681, which is made up of a design and engineering cost of $75,000 and an estimated construction cost of $1,334,681.