David L Wislon

Paterson

1. The people. My high school yearbook looks like a United Nations directory. We learned how to be cosmopolitans because we had to tolerate and appreciate other's customs, food, music, and behavior. The people who live there now are from different places from those that lived there before.
2. The housing stock and the old silk mills are architecturally significant buildings. Except for some neighborhoods the housing has held up pretty well.
3. Paterson is a great food town. There are Italian bar/pizzarias that have been there since 1931; some of the best Arab restaurants in the entire NY metro area; Jamaican and Caribbean places; Peruvian and Peruvian/Chinese places; the hotdog stands where you can get a Hot Texas Weiner all-the-way.
4. The Paterson Museum and the Passaic Falls.
5. People know how to park their cars without killing parking spaces for others.

1. I don't physically live in Paterson, but spiritually, I never left the place. So I don't have to put up with any of the petty inconveniences of daily living.
2. Patronage politics
3. They demolished the Fallsview Grill and replaced it with a Burger King