Rubble Rouser

By Alan Richard

On his first trip to Paterson two years ago, architect Roy Strickland expected to see nothing more than dilapidated warehouses and abandoned brick factories. Like other cities in New Jersey's rust belt, Paterson has fallen on hard times, with its once-famous textile industry in tatters and its schools so forlorn that the state seized control of the district nearly a decade ago. But driving from New York City, a few minutes after crossing over the Hudson River, Strickland saw signs of hope, not despair. "The trees broke, and there was this series of church spires and domes that made me think of Florence," he says. Not many people would compare New Jersey urban blight to Italian Renaissance wonders, but in Paterson Strickland saw potential. Throughout his visit, he encountered inspiring architecture drenched in history. The structures often looked like battered war horses, but Strickland recognized the chance to do what he had long dreamed possible—spark an inner city's revival by transforming vacant buildings into public schools. Paterson, he believed, could become "The City of Learning."

An expert in school design and an instructor at MIT in Boston, Strickland had been hired as a consultant to help Paterson find sites for new schools. As luck would have it, his idea to make use of run-down buildings fit perfectly with Paterson Superintendent Edwin Duroy's plans to create small learning academies throughout the city, each focused on a career or field of interest. Together, the architect and the superintendent hatched a grand plan to help revitalize Paterson's schools and the city itself.

More than two years later, the pair has laid the foundation for the City of Learning. Six career academies are holding classes at sites ranging from a synagogue to a shopping center. Three more will open this fall. These small changes have not gone unnoticed; people who have called these parts home their entire lives are seeing old buildings for the first time. Their much-maligned city, it seems, has...