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Where to Stay in Paterson, New Jersey
Paterson is the seat of Passaic County in New Jersey, a city built around the Great Falls, twelve miles from Manhattan.
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Where to stay in Paterson
The right area depends on your trip — here's what each neighbourhood is best for.
Two things decide a bed in Paterson: the Great Falls, or South Paterson. Rooms in the quarter around the falls keep the Paterson Museum and the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist inside the same short walk, and anyone whose reason for coming is the cataract itself should take that side and stop deliberating. Little of it needs a car.
Passaic County keeps its seat in the same part of town, so a room there answers county business as readily as sightseeing. South Paterson trades the falls for a different city. The Arab community the place is known for holds these blocks, one of the largest anywhere in the nation, and the streets read nothing like the ground below the cataract.
Lambert Castle sits away from both. Further out, rooms suit drivers who treat Paterson as a base twelve miles from Manhattan rather than a destination, giving up walking distance in exchange for the road, and that trade is worth making only if the car is doing most of the work. Bed stock thins toward those edges.
About Paterson
The Great Falls explain the city.
What is Paterson known for?
Among the waterfalls east of the Mississippi only Niagara Falls moves more water, and the cataract dropping through the middle of Paterson has fixed the place since its founding in 1792. Passaic County governs from here. Hispanic, Arab, Italian-American, African American and Bengali communities all hold ground in the city, and South Paterson carries one of the largest Arab communities in the nation.
It ranks third among New Jersey's cities.
What are the main landmarks in Paterson?
Lambert Castle stands apart. The Paterson Museum keeps the record of what was made in the city, while the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist gives the Catholic parishes of Passaic County their mother church, a title none of the other buildings in the city can claim. First Presbyterian Church and St Joseph's Church fill out the roll, and St. Gerard Majella Church closes it.
Above all of these, the Great Falls.
What is the history of Paterson?
Paterson dates from 1792. The year matters because of what the site had: the Great Falls carry more water than any waterfall east of the Mississippi except Niagara Falls, and that force was the argument for putting a city on this ground rather than on easier land a few miles away. Passaic County later fixed its seat in the same streets.
Administration and water power have shared the place ever since. What followed is legible in the buildings. The Paterson Museum holds the record of the work done here, and the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist, First Presbyterian Church and St Joseph's Church mark out congregations that each took a quarter of the city for their own.
Lambert Castle belongs to the same run of survivals, and St. Gerard Majella Church to the parish life that kept going around it. Arrivals kept coming. Hispanic, Arab, Italian-American, African American and Bengali communities all count for a great deal of the city, and South Paterson in particular carries one of the largest Arab communities in the nation, which has made that quarter a destination in its own right for people who never see the falls.
New Jersey has no other city quite like it.
Where is Paterson?
The Great Falls cut through the middle of Paterson, and the drop of water there is the one fact that decides how everything else in the city is arranged around it. Manhattan lies twelve miles off. Roughly twenty-three square kilometres of Passaic County make up the municipality, tight ground for a city of this rank, with South Paterson occupying one edge of it and the rest of the county pressing on the others.
Little of that ground is empty.
What is the climate of Paterson?
Paterson stands in the temperate band of the northern hemisphere, which sets the terms for its year. The seasons split four ways. Cold and heat alternate on a long cycle, and the water going over the Great Falls answers to that cycle as much as anything else does, swelling after heavy rain and thinning out through the drier weeks.
Passaic County lives by the same calendar.
How do you get to Paterson?
Manhattan is twelve miles off. That closeness shapes the approach, since most arrivals come in by road from the Manhattan side rather than treating Paterson as a journey of its own, and the Great Falls are what pulls them the last few miles. Passaic County keeps its courts and offices in the city.
County business therefore fills the streets on weekdays, quite apart from anyone who has come to see the cataract.
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Updated August 2026