- The Denny Farrell Riverbank State Park – located in northern Harlem – is the most heavily trafficked state park in New York City, with 3 million visitors each year.
- Park sits atop a closed sewage treatment plant that was originally planned for West 72nd Street but was relocated to Harlem due to Upper West Side landlord resistance.
- The $26 million makeover for the park is intended to rectify the park being built atop a sewage treatment plant. Renovations will include $19 million for athletic facilities, with $5 million to go towards resurfacing the outdoor track.
By: Gothamist | January 11, 2023
Denny Farrell Riverbank State Park, a West Harlem green space that was built in response to community allegations of environmental racism, is getting a $26 million makeover.
The 28-acre park, which commands dramatic views of the Hudson and the Palisades, was built atop a sewage treatment plant, making it the only park of its kind in the Western Hemisphere, according to environmental justice activists…
A sewage treatment plant was moved to the mostly Black and Latino neighborhood of Harlem without meaningful input from the local community making the plant, in Corbin-Mark’s words, “a poster child for environmental injustice”…
That indignity was compounded in the years after the plant was built, when area residents suffered from a stench emanating from the plant, which processes hundreds of millions of gallons of sewage per day. The administration of Mayor David Dinkins agreed to a $1.1 million settlement as a result of a lawsuit and made needed improvements to the plant.
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