The Jersey Journal
Date:
2001/06/13
By John
Petrick,
Journal staff writer
On Morris
Pesin's
gravestone, the epitaph reads: "The father of Liberty State Park
and fighter for just causes."
It's a
fitting tribute, says his son, Sam Pesin.
"I
would describe him as a champion of the people. He was determined, strong, a
fighter. He was like a buzz saw. When he fought for something, he went at it
full blast," Sam says.
The
"fight," as it were, began on a hot Sunday afternoon in May, 1957. Morris
decided to take his wife, Ethel, and children, then-7-year-old Sam and
5-year-old Judy, to visit the Statue of Liberty. They spent almost 21/2 hours
from the time they left their Jersey City home, fought tunnel traffic into
Manhattan and waited on a long line to catch the ferry from Battery Park.
When they
finally made it to the island, Morris
couldn't help but look out toward the New Jersey horizon - and notice that it
was only a stone's throw away. If a person could walk across water, they could
have gotten from Jersey City to the island in minutes.
The other
thing Morris
noticed was the New Jersey shore line's state of decay, with its decrepit piers
and garbage-riddled lots.
That day
was what inspired a crusade that would last him the rest of his life - the fight
for an open space family park
behind Liberty Island and a way of getting to the island from that park.
A year
later, in 1958, Morris
alerted the media and took an 8-minute canoe ride with a Jersey Journal reporter
from the Jersey City waterfront to the Statue of Liberty.
Morris spent the next 18 years planting the seeds for a new park
and another 16 years helping to make it grow and flourish.
In 1962,
he founded the Statue of Liberty Causeway and Park
Association to get government and public support for a new park
and a walkway that would lead from that park
to the island. In the late 1960s, the Hudson County Citizens Committee, which
also included such local civic activists Theodore Conrad and Audrey Zapp, joined
the campaign for the park.
"Mayor
Hague had been so dominant that everybody thought you can't fight City Hall. But
these people were passionate activists," says Sam, noting the group also
helped save Hudson County's historic old courthouse and trees along Kennedy
Boulevard that were slated for destruction.
President
Lyndon Johnson declared Ellis Island part of the Statue of Liberty National
Monument in 1965, calling for Ellis Island's renovation and the creation of a park
on the Jersey waterfront to go with it. That same year, Jersey City deeded 156
acres to the state, the first parcel of what would become Liberty State Park.
From
there, progress was stymied by the state's unwillingness to provide sufficient
funds to acquire railroad land needed for the park's
creation. A major push came in 1972, when the passage of the Green Acres Bond
Act and the strong interest of New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection
Commissioner Richard Sullivan brought $3 million toward the necessary land
purchases.
Finally, Morris
Pesin's
dream came true on Flag Day, June 14, 1976. In a ceremony that included the Girl
Scouts and Boy Scouts raising 50 state flags lining the entrance, Liberty State Park
officially opened. It became a prime viewing spot for the July 4 Bicentennial
festivities along the New York harbor.
As head of
the Jersey City Cultural Arts Commission and City Spirit Program, Morris
went on to launch a popular series of free concerts every Sunday afternoon and
Thursday evening during summers.
The son of
Russian Jewish immigrants, Morris
was an attorney in practice with four of his brothers on Journal Square. He was
old enough to avoid the draft during World War II, though he did his part by
working in a Bayonne factory that manufactured submarine parts. After the war,
he opened Pesin's
children's clothing store on Journal Square.
In 1969,
he was elected a councilman representing the city's West Side ward. After being
re-elected in 1973, he was one of the prime sponsors of rent control laws being
put on the books in Jersey City, according to his son.
"He
was just so much for the people. He knew Jersey City needed open space,"
says Allan Roy Bardack of Bardack Realty in Jersey City. The longtime friend of Pesin
is a member of the Friends of Liberty State Park,
a volunteer open space advocacy organization formed in 1988 to protect, promote,
conserve and preserve the park.
"And
when he was a councilman, he really put the others to the test. He didn't just
sit there and say, 'I'm a rubber stamp,' " Bardack added.
Morris went on to mentor members of the Friends of Liberty
State Park,
who have fought their share of battles against various commercial projects
proposed by the Liberty State Park
Development Corp.
The
corporation was formed in 1984 as part of a public/private partnership that
looks to bring income-generating projects to the park.
Proposals such as a golf course and a water park
- both strongly opposed by Sam Pesin
- have not received state approval. Other income-generators, such as concerts,
paid parking, the marina and Cirque du Soleil, made it into the park
to the dismay of those advocating free, open space.
Following Morris'
death in July 1992, son Sam has been continuing the mission his father started
so many years ago during that canoe trip. If Morris
Pesin
is the father of Liberty State Park,
Sam Pesin
sounds like the stepfather. A fast-talker like his dad, he devotes virtually all
his spare time to park
activities and issues and seems as all-consumed by them.
Sam shies
away, however, from such comparisons. And even that kind of modesty is a mirror
of his dad.
"He
was a fighter. But he was a humble man," says Sam, pausing for a moment,
trying not to get too emotional over the memory of his father.
More than
this week being about his father, himself or any one person in particular, Sam
says, it's more about following through with a mission.
"I think the essence of this 25-year history is people have fought for a free, open park behind the Statue of Liberty - and they succeeded."