South Bronx Waterfront Park

Friends of Brook Park Awarded $100,000
Grant for South Bronx Waterfront Park
By Robert Waddell

AUGUST
10-23, 2006 4 Tiempo
NewYork

The Friends of Brook Park in the
Mott Haven section of the Bronx was
recently awarded $100,000 to develop a
waterfront park and continue their work
of community gardening.
The grant comes from the
Environmental Protection Fund and will
be administered through the New York
City Department of Parks and Recreation,
which allows the neighborhood gardener
group to continue years of work of bringing
green space to the Mott Haven section.
Brook Park, located at 141 Street
and BrookAvenue, operates a community
sponsored agricultural venue where residents
can sell and grow food. They sponsor
a green market everyWednesday. The
new waterfront park would allow residents
to come close to the water, fish,
swim and canoe.
“This makes our grassroots efforts
more official,” said Harry Bubbins, director
of the Friends of Brook Park. “If it
wasn’t for this grant to target the waterfront,
it would have taken decades.”
In developing the land at the waterfront,
at the end of Park Avenue and 131
Street, he wants the new waterfront park
to become an official parks site.
“This is a real vote of confidence and
shows that we’re ready to go,” said
Bubbins, who has worked with Friends of
Brook Park since 1999. “We want official
park status within a year.”
If he had not received the grant, he
said that a wave of gentrification and a
lack of development opportunities would
have prevented waterfront development.
He credits local politicians like
Carmen Arroyo and Melissa Mark
Viverito for their support. These politicians,
said Bubbins, helped support a capital
plan of $2 million for Brook Park.
Carol Zakaluk, a member of the
Friends of Brook Park’s board of directors
and whose family has lived in Mott
Haven for over 80 years, remembered
that people used to go fishing and be
close to the water when she was a child.
“We have three canoes and no legal
place to launch them,” Zakaluk said. “It’s
not just to look pretty, but we want to
touch the water and get into it.”
The industrial area of Mott Haven
has water on three sides, said Zakaluk,
but the river can only be seen from a
bridge or through a fence.
With all of the husks of industrialized
buildings and old factories, the community,
she said, needs green spaces. The nearest
park is Saint Mary’s Park. At the
waterfront, there are now four power
plants.
“We need to produce community
support and corporate entities who will
invest in the well being of the neighborhood,”
he said. “We all want to contribute
to the community in holistic developments,
draw more attention to the waterfront
and…spread the love to the waterfront.”


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