Riverbank Park, in Newark’s Ironbound along the Passaic River, opened in 1910 as the smallest park in the Essex County system but one of its busiest. Designed by the Olmsted Brothers, it grew from land acquired in 1907, with Franklin Murphy pushing for open space for workers at Murphy Varnish Works. The park later expanded onto the former Balbach Smelting & Refining Company site. In 1996, community opposition led by SPARK defeated efforts to replace it with a stadium, helped win National Register listing in 1998, and supported contaminated-soil cleanup completed in 2003. Since the 2010s, it has remained a lively community space tied to Newark’s renewed waterfront.