The family of Jackie Robinson has tentatively offered to pay for a baseball field at Liberty State Park in Jersey City.
Ayo Robinson, a granddaughter of the baseball legend, announced the family’s intentions to donate the funds at a public forum on the future of the site before the Liberty State Park Design Task Force earlier this month.
“If there is a plan that I believe is honest, my family and I would like to donate to Liberty State Park a baseball field for the youth to come and play,” said Ayo Robinson, according to video of the meeting.
The Jackie Robinson Foundation did not respond to requests for additional details about the offer.
Residents of Jersey City have been vocal about the need for baseball fields, basketball courts and other forms of active recreation in Liberty State Park. While the park has a variety of open fields for recreation — including Crescent Field, Terminal Field and Pavilion Field — none of them are athletic fields.
The public meeting to discuss redesigning the park drew over 100 people in person and another 270 online.
Ayo Robinson said she would like a new ball field to represent her family’s legacy of “personal excellence and empowerment, and what we can be in this country when we actually have a real, functioning democracy.”
Jackie Robinson made history when he entered Jersey City’s Roosevelt Stadium to play a minor league game on April 18, 1946, becomingthe first Black player to break organized white baseball’s color barrier. He was playing for the Montreal Royals against the Jersey City Giants in the International League.
Robinson would later go on to break Major League Baseball’s color barrier in 1947 when he started at first base for the Brooklyn Dodgers as the first Black major league player in the game’s modern era.
At the meeting, Ayo Robinson urged Shawn LaTourette, commissioner of the state Department of Environmental Protection, to “listen to the people” as the task force considered making changes to the state park.
It was the second public meeting of the Liberty State Park Design Task Force, a 23-member advisory body consisting of local officials, activists and residents. The task force was created by lawmakers in 2022 to advise the state Department of Environmental Protection on the future of the park.
Ayo Robinson did not offer any other details about her family’s proposed donation at the public meeting.
The path to revitalizing Liberty State Park has not been straight-forward.
Liberty State Park, the largest urban park in New Jersey, was created after a trip to the Statue of Liberty taken by Jersey City Commissioner Morris Pesin in 1958.
“Looking west, two things struck Pesin. One was that the statue was so much closer to Jersey City than to NYC, and the other was that his hometown’s derelict waterfront of decaying piers and junk strewn abandoned railroad yards formed a shameful backdrop for Ms. Liberty,” according to the Friends of Liberty State Park, a nonprofit dedicated to protecting and improving the park.
The park opened in 1976 and has grown to over 1,200 acres, with a combination of open space, wildlife habitat and recreation, according to the state Department of Environmental Protection website.
It is also home to the former terminal for the Central Railroad of New Jersey. A 234-acre swath of the park’s interior that was once used by the railroad remains closed due to contamination.
People have debated for years about the best way to revitalize Liberty State Park.
Gov. Phil Murphy signed a bill in 2022 that established an advisory task force on redeveloping the park and also provided $50 million for the project. But, the bill has been criticized for opening the park to privatization. It was supported by lobbyists tied to Paul Fireman, the billionaire owner of the ultra-exclusive golf course next door.
The state Department of Environmental Protection opted for its own planned revitalization of Liberty State Park.
The agency began a long-awaited clean up and restoration of the park last fall. The task force also introduced concept plans to transform a portion of Liberty State Park that included renderings of athletic fields, a beach and a variety of other recreational amenities.
The next meeting of the Liberty State Park Design Task Force is April 9, according to the state Department of Environmental Protection’s website.
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Jackie Roman may be reached at jroman@njadvancemedia.com.
