ROBERT SIEGEL, host: Yesterday, we invited listeners to submit their stories and photos about a river in northern New Jersey, the Passaic, or as listener Bill Walker, who was born in the city of Paterson, New Jersey, corrects us, Passaic.</s>He writes: Passaic, two syllables. The only people who use the three-syllable pronunciation are New York announcers who never bother to learn the correct way to say this word.</s>MELISSA BLOCK, host: Hey, I'm a native daughter of Brooklyn. Who's he calling a New York announcer?</s>MELISSA BLOCK, host: Either way, Robert, we were planning to tell the story of this remarkable waterway later this fall. This is the river that Alexander Hamilton envisioned as the key to young America's economic success. And as a result, it was used and abused for centuries.</s>MELISSA BLOCK, host: So if you have any recollections or pictures of the Passaic or Passaic River in northern New Jersey, please send them to river at npr.org.
Listeners are invited to submit stories and photos about New Jersey's Passaic River to help us in our plan to chronicle the history and environmental condition of the troubled waterway. Send comments and photos to river@npr.org. In one email we've received, a listener says most people he knows in New Jersey make the name two syllables — pa-SAKE — not pa-SAY-ik.