GREENING OF THE BRONX
Adams unveils 7-mile plan for Harlem River shoreline
The city will launch efforts next month to create 7 miles of greenway in the Bronx along the shores of the Harlem River — an effort that advocates view as long overdue and say could ultimately take more than a decade to complete.
Mayor Adams and several other top city officials announced the plan Wednesday atop the High Bridge, a 175-year-old span that connects the Bronx and upper Manhattan and which overlooks a portion of the proposed green space.
The first phase of the plan — set to begin on April 18 — will involve the city getting feedback from local residents on what they want out of the new space. That process will culminate in a design, with construction expected to begin sometime next spring.
“We’re doing it the right way. We’re doing it by having communities engaged and communities involved,” said Adams, who rolled into the news conference on a Citi Bike.
“We have over 500 miles of waterfront in this city, and all of it should be explored, all of it should be developed for people to walk, for people to ride, for people to just be encouraged to experience the outdoors.”
The greenway is expected to run from Van Cortlandt Park in the northern the Bronx down to the borough’s southern shores, near Randalls Island.
Adams and Rep. Adriano Espaillat, who represents part of the Bronx and upper Manhattan, both highlighted that the project is not only aimed at creating more green space, but doing so in areas that traditionally haven’t received the attention and funding more have.
“When you walk around New York City and you walk south of 96th St., you see the investment on the waterfront and see places like the High Line and see places like the waterfront along the affluent enclaves
Hudson,” Espaillat said.
“You see all the major investment going on in certain parts of the city. It is called disparity, right?”
The congressman then praised the mayor for trying to invest in “neighborhoods that have been left behind.”
The city’s Transportation and Parks departments, as well as the Economic Development Corp., will be responsible for shepherding the project through to completion.
When asked about the project’s projected cost, Transportation Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez said he did not have those numbers immediately available.
Chauncy Young, coordinator of the Harlem River Working Group, has been pushing for the greenway for years. Young was ecstatic over the announcement, but tempered his enthusiasm for it with realistic expectations about when the greenway will be completed.
“The entire greenway itself, I would say is going to take over a decade,” he told reporters.
“Projects in New York City take a long time, but it’s for the betterment of the community that we’re doing this because all residents deserve access to their waterfront.”