BRONX TIMES REPORTER, J BTR ULY 12-18, 2019 19
The NYC Parks Department broke ground on Tuesday, June 18 at its newest Parks Without
Borders project site in Van Cortlandt Park. Mitchell Silver, NYC Parks Department commissioner
(c) and Iris Rodriguez-Rosa, NYC Parks Bronx commissioner were among many dignitaries
and community advocates at the groundbreaking.
Photo courtesy of NYC Parks Department
Parks Without Borders
project in Van Cortlant Park
BY PATRICK ROCCHIO
A Parks Without Borders project in
the borough held a groundbreaking inside
of the city’s third largest park.
Van Cortlandt Park held its Parks
Without Borders groundbreaking on
several projects geared towards improving
locations where the community
blends into a park, along with sites
on the edges of the park, including near
Broadway. This is the goal of the overall
PWB initiative in and around the edges
of parks.
The park, along with Virginia Park
and Hugh Grant Circle in Parkchester,
were nominated to be part of eight citywide
PWB showcase project sites in
public online voting for proposed projects
and citizen conferences.
“It was really a community-wide effort”
to get out the vote for the projects,
and it showed that people cared about
the park, said Christina Taylor, Van
Cortlandt Park Alliance director of programs
and operations.
She said she helped organize a successful
effort to gain public support for
the PWB construction, adding it included
help from the Manhattan College’s
leadership, who had spread the
message about the voting on the college’s
social media.
The groundbreaking took place on
Tuesday, June 18 on $5.9 million in improvements
to Van Cortlandt Park.
They include the transformation of a
now un-utilized skating rink into a seating
area with a spray shower feature,
new entrances to the park and the removal
of fences near the terminus of the
IRT #1 line at Broadway and West 242nd
Street to make the park more welcoming,
and the reconstruction of a barbecuing
area and restoration of wetlands
near Broadway and West 242nd Street,
said Taylor. The amount of fencing
near the last stop of the train would be
reduced and made uninform in appearance,
she said.
The project is slated for being completed
in the summer of 2020.
Additionally, another groundbreaking
is expected soon on work to enhance
Virginia Park and Playground and on
opening up now fenced-off greenspace
at Hugh Grant Circle to pedestrians and
commuters leaving the IRT #6 train,
said Nilka Martell, a parks advocate
from the area.
Attending the Van Cortlandt Park
groundbreaking were Mitchell Silver,
NYC Parks Department commissioner
and Iris Rosa-Rodriguez, NYC Parks
Bronx commissioner.
Parks Without Borders is a design concept that improves the areas where parks meet communities
like park entrances, edges, and spaces adjacent to parks, like the area around this
path in Van Cortlandt Park. Photo courtesy of NYC Parks Department