Friends of Brook Park

Group fights for water rights

Up creek on river access
Group fights for water rights

BY VISHAL PERSAUD

Daily News
Tuesday, June 15,2010

PDF of Daily News Article

WATER, water everywhere, and
no place to put a paddle.
That’s the gripe a Bronx
group is raising over lack of
public access to the Harlem River
waterfront at the new Mill
Pond Park in Mott Haven.
“People can’t even walk to
the water and fish and touch
it,” said Harry Bubbins, director
of Friends of Brook Park.
While most visitors to the
10-acre park can enjoy a walk
along the waterfront pathways,
or sit in a sand-decked picnic
area, mesh and steel fencing —
as well as rail tracks — separate
the public from the river’s
edge.
Groups like the Friends of
Brook Park advocate public access
to the riverfront to introduce
boating, canoeing and fishing
programs to the community.
Bubbins said the new park at
the foot of 149th St. has three
separate spots that could offer
potential public access to the
water.
The big problem is that an
active railway line owned by the
CSX Corporation runs along the
water’s edge, blocking access.
But Bronx Parks Commissioner
Hector Aponte said water
access was never a part of the
original design plan for the new
park.
“The park was designed to allow
people to get close to the
river,” he said. “The park was
not designed for river sports
such as boating, kayaking and
canoeing.”
Yet some residents feel that
access to the water would be a
good idea.
“It would be a good thing for
the community because there’s
a lot of people that like to fish
or do boat watching or sit and
enjoy the water,” said Mark
Elzey, 46, of Morrisania.
The park, which opened last
October, was a vacant industrial
site transformed by the city into
the first waterfront park along
the Harlem River as part of the
Yankee Stadium Redevelopment
Project.
The Bronx River Alliance, a
coalition dedicated to cleaning
up the Bronx River, introduced
public canoe trips along the
8-mile stretch of the river.
Similar groups, like The Urban
Divers Estuary Conservancy, a
citywide environmental and cultural
nonprofit, want access to
the Harlem River to raise
awareness about the natural resources
available in the city.
The group wants to introduce
hardworking communities in the
Bronx to activities such as
catch-and-release fishing to connect
them with the environment
and provide a respite from hectic
city life, said Ludger Balan,
the nonprofit’s executive environmental
program director.