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By: Benyamin Davidsons
Riverside Park, stretching four miles from 72nd to 158th streets along the Hudson River, was once lauded as Manhattan’s most spectacular waterfront park. Years of neglect, however, have led to crumbling infrastructure, hedgerows of weeds, muddy water and flooding.
As reported by the NY Post, local residents in the Upper West Side are appalled by the lack of funding and deteriorating conditions. “It’s just sort of a threadbare carpet,” said Jonathan Weiner, 70, a Columbia University teacher who has lived near the park for the last 20 years. “There’s a lot that is a little bit sad to see remembering what it was like two decades ago,” he told The Post. Century-old stairs at the park have crumbled into piles of bricks, cobbled walking paths are obstructed by weeds grown wild, and murky water floods lawns and walkways.
“The city runs the park like this? It’s ridiculous. They should be cutting the grass,” said Joel, an Upper West Side dad who regularly brings his son to the park. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen that entrance open,” he added, pointing to a closed entryway. Parts of the pavement in the walkways are broken, with support beams from the underground train tunnel crumbling. At nighttime the park is not much more than a vast stretch of darkness, with path lights missing in many sections. The park is a common site for fenced-off areas, with some parts under repair continually. When there is heavy rain, massive water puddles flood walkways for days after.
The Riverside Park Conservancy, the nonprofit that manages the park alongside the city Parks Department, admits to the deteriorating conditions at the park. They say, however, that City Hall just does not provide enough funding for even basic maintenance or repairs. “This administration has cut the parks budget severely. Years and years of austerity budgets, years and years of cuts,” Conservancy CEO Merritt Birnbaum told The Post. “We, and my many colleagues at other parks advocacy groups around the city, are screaming until we’re blue in the face that we need more funding for parks, not less.”
Riverside Park was first designed in the 1870s by Frederick Law Olmstead – the famed architect behind Central Park. The park was famed for its tall rock cliffs, tree-lined promenades and stone verandas with views of the river. Per the Post, in the 1930s, the park was extended under Robert Moses, with new promenades and verandas being added. A long walkway filled with playgrounds and flowerboxes weas also added then. That, however, was the last time the park was graced with substantial investment or upgrades.
Since then, even the park’s infrastructure has been neglected.
Birnbaum lamented the park’s antiquated drainage system. “You only have to look at the weather of last September, which was the wettest September on history in over 100 years,” said the Conservancy CEO, “We have never had rain like this. And the park is where all of the water from the rest of Manhattan on the West Side floods down.” She said the current old pipes and crumpling state would have in many cases been avoided with proper care. “What you’re seeing happening in the park right now is deferred maintenance – it’s the fact that the city builds things and doesn’t allocate money to maintain them,” she said.
