By Daniel Katzive
The city’s proposal last week to finally fund a major renovation of the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument may ultimately be 2023’s biggest news involving Riverside Park. But preservation of the monument, which honors New Yorkers who served in the Union Army during the Civil War, is far from the only project planned for the park this year, as West Side Rag learned when it recently caught up with Merritt Birnbaum, President and CEO of the Riverside Park Conservancy (RPC).
RPC is a non-profit organization which describes its mission as working with the Parks Department and other city agencies to “support the preservation of the park’s historic landscapes, structures and monuments, engage the community in active stewardship of the park, and provide a wide range of public programs,” according to its website. Birnbaum joined the Conservancy in September after heading Friends of Governors Island, another nonprofit parks group, for nearly seven years. She introduced herself to the Community Board 7 Parks & Environment Committee back in October, and you can hear her describe her career and passion for outdoor spaces on the Zoom recording of that meeting: https://youtu.be/iJJ6GEfR0P4
Birnbaum is herself a resident of the Upper East Side. She says she has “been using the last several months to get to know the really unique nature of the park…just finding my own favorite spots within the park has been really exciting.” She notes she has particularly enjoyed discovering the whole stretch of park in the 140s and 150s. “I hadn’t spent a lot of time there and it’s something that’s so unique. You just feel a million miles away from the rest of the city when you’re there.”
Birnbaum shared a punch list of smaller-scale projects that the Conservancy plans to complete this year:
Riverside Park will get its first pickleball courts – five of them, in an area that’s currently unused, just north of the new skatepark and south of the basketball courts. The area is east of the Henry Hudson Parkway near 108th Street. If the weather cooperates, the RPC is anticipating a mid-summer opening.
The dog run at 108th Street is set to be resurfaced and restored this year.
Further south, work is underway to restore the old diesel switching locomotive that sits in Riverside Park South. The engine once worked the docks in South Brooklyn and was rescued from scrapping and located in Riverside Park in 2006 as a nod to the old New York Central railyards that used to stretch between 59th and 72nd. The locomotive’s paint is peeling and its metal parts show signs of rust. In addition to making those repairs, the locomotive’s acrylic windows will be replaced with tempered glass, and the interior will be rehabilitated so that visitors can go inside.
On a somewhat more prosaic note, but of great importance in a park comprised of multiple tiers and steep grades, Birnbaum said repairs are underway to the staircase that leads from the promenade down to the basketball courts at 110th Street, and repair of the long-closed stairs at 103rd Street that lead from the promenade to the running track is scheduled for completion by summer. She explained these stair repairs take a long time, in part, because heavy equipment cannot be driven on the promenade structure.
New fencing will be installed around the Joan of Arc monument on the park island at 93rd Street.
Then there are bigger projects, planned or underway, but not scheduled for completion in 2023:
- Repairs are planned for the “park overbuild” structure, which supports the broad promenade along the middle level of the park, and dates back to its Robert Moses era reconstruction in the 1930s. The structure undergirds the promenade above the Amtrak rail line; its deterioration over the years, combined with more extreme rainfall events, has led to chronic flooding in the section of the park north of 100th. Birnbaum says a two-year city study of water flows in the area is just concluding and will provide the basis for a long-term plan. Meanwhile, the Conservancy is taking short-term steps to limit flooding and erosion and plans to replace barricades blocking flood areas with more attractive materials.
- The marina at 79th Street remains closed to boats while the city’s Parks Department awaits a new design for a dock house. The department’s original design was heavily criticized by the community last year for blocking sight lines and imposing an “industrial aesthetic.
- At the southernmost end of the park, between 61st and 65th Street, work is underway on turf athletic fields that will be the final segment of Riverside Park South. Birnbaum estimated the time frame for completion is in the two-year range.
Birnbaum also described Conservancy efforts to deal with three ongoing issues: climate change, safety, and rats. The park’s steep terrain makes threats from extreme rainfall as serious as those from rising sea levels that affect the Hudson River estuary, and the Conservancy is “thinking about ways that we can improve the park’s own ability to act as a bioswale for runoff, how we can have better green infrastructure that can support the collection of water throughout the park.”
The Conservancy is also continuing to switch its fleet over to long-range battery-powered vehicles in order to reduce its carbon footprint. Currently 60% of the RPC’s 25-vehicle fleet (mostly Utility Terrain Vehicles, or UTVs) is electric or hybrid powered. The RPC’s goal is to ultimately have a fully electric or hybrid fleet of vehicles.
Birnbaum noted community concerns about safety on the park’s bike path, particularly the potential hazards caused by motorized bikes, which cannot be legally ridden in the park. “That is something that scares me on a daily basis,” she says. Birnbaum said it’s an issue she discusses with elected officials and with partners at Hudson River Park, which extends south along the river from 59th Street. “It’s another one of those problems that I really want to see the city take a leadership position on because it’s not just affecting Riverside Park.” Meanwhile, she said she encourages park users to report where they see dangerous bike path conditions to 311. West Side Rag notes that at a recent 24th Precinct Community Council meeting, neighborhood coordination officers reported that they have been stepping up efforts to intercept and confiscate illegal bikes on the bike path in the West 80s and 90s.
To address the perennial problem of rats, Birnbaum said the Conservancy is considering more frequent garbage pickups and adding more rat-resistant “Bigbelly” trash receptacles. Currently there are 78 such receptacles in the park and the RPC continues to look at how many more can be added.
“We always want everyone to be able to experience creative access to nature and everything that our park system has to offer,” Birnbaum said, “but first and foremost, it’s a resource for the people who live there.” To this end, the Conservancy also wants to increase physical access to the park by adding more entry points, particularly in the northern areas above 140th Street where access points are limited by the highway and railroad.
Birnbaum said the RPC relies a great deal on small grassroots contributions and their year-end fundraising effort met its match-challenge goal; she thanks the community for the support. The organization says it had more than 3,000 individual gifts in 2021, and 2021 tax filings show over $5 million in total contributions, gifts, and grants.
Can you clarify what an “illegal bike” that might be confiscated is? Do you mean illegal motorized scooters, without pedals and that aren’t registered? Surely a user riding an e-bike (otherwise legal, but not allowed on the path) would be given a ticket rather than having the bike confiscated?
I recommend the Conservancy installs speed bumps along the water.
I run along the Hudson several times a month and I share the path with bicyclists. Most are courteous but some are reckless and ride dangerously fast and pass very close to me even though I hug the side of the path.
Having speed bumps at regular intervals would slow down dangerous bicyclists.
Thank you, Otis.
I already pointed this out to WSR in October 2019 and in January 2021.
An excerpt from my January 2021 letter about the lack of safety on Cherry Walk: “In addition, speed bumps (or dips) should be installed to tame those cyclists who feel that faster and wilder is better. Granted, only a small minority of cyclists behave like that, but they make life miserable and dangerous for people trying to enjoy a casual walk or jog.”
Shouldn’t park users’ safety be a top concern for the Riverside Park Conservancy?
I agree but rumble strips like bands of cobble stone more likely to slow them. Riding over those at speed is very uncomfortable and not good for the bike
“Birnbaum noted community concerns about safety on the park’s bike path, particularly the potential hazards caused by motorized bikes, which cannot be legally ridden in the park. ”
Though illegal, there sure are a lot of motorized scooters/bikes in use in the park. However, it’s conventional bicyclists who usually come closest to hitting me. Most of them, yes really, most treat the paths they’re allowed to use as only for bicycles, when they’re dual use.
You’ve got to be kidding me. PICKLEBALL?
FIX THE STRUCTURAL ISSUES AND HIRE AN ARBORIST. The park is crumbling right now. Enough with this cosmetic crap.
Pickleball is one of the fastest-growing sports for people over age 60, and with good reason.
It boosts the cardiovascular system and gives a good aerobic workout without as much stress and strain on joints and muscles. Why shouldn’t seniors get a space in Riverside Park devoted to a sport they can play?
Encouraging people to use the park (like through pickleball courts) also helps fund future repairs. Making sure the neighborhood is invested in and enjoying their park space in small ways is one of the forward-looking ways to protect its infrastructure. More eyes on problems, more hearts invested in resolving them. I don’t play pickleball, but I’m happy to hear about the courts.
What do you have against pickleball? It is a very popular sport, rapidly growing, and accessible to people of all ages. I’m guessing this will not cost a lot. This fall I actually saw some kids with their own pickleball set playing in the park. Of course, some typical UWS nosybodies were harassing them for reasons I didn’t understand, even though they were not in anyone’s way.
If building pickleball courts in Riverside Park is your biggest problem in life, you live a very charmed life…
There are desperate needs for repairs to Riverside Park. The walls, the tunnel, the drainage, the landscaping, replanting trees. This is lipstick on a pig.
Pickleball is wonderful!
I have won a few pickleball championships.
Before or after you were a volleyball star at Baruch?
Also – the 103rd street stairs have been closed off for almost 15 years now. The Riverside Park Conservancy must be joking if its director thinks the above qualifies as sufficient efforts. Resurfacing a dog run? How about making certain the rest park can be used by everyone and not by rogue dog owners who let their pups off leash at any given hour without regard for the rest of us?
If you actually read the interview you would see that the 103rd street stairs (actually they’re closer to 102nd) are being repaired now. Go check it out.
Note the mud wallow so prominent at the beginning of the story. Nothing better illustrates the failure of the conservancy and the Parks Department to adequately maintain the ecology of the park. Trees require pruning. Erosion is out of control. The lack of diversity of the tree cover, Sycamores and Locust, provides potential for wide spread disease. How aggressive is the conservancy in monitoring the health of the ecology that makes a park a park? The conservancy may do a fairly decent job with the hardscape of Riverside Park but their stewardship of the landscape is gravely lacking.
Thank you. Look at the reports from the early Aughts on the park. There were 3 arborists assigned to Riverside Park. Now there is one. The number of trees chopped down in recent years rather than being pruned is a direct result of neglect.
The park is a gem. However, it is being horribly mismanaged and the fencing/cones/yellow tape the parks staff put up for months instead of effecting repairs is a symptom of this deeper dysfunction. Fix the basics before anything else
You need to understand that the Conservancy is not the Parks Dept. It is a relatively small organization with limited, private funding. With that small funding it does its best to pay for relatively small but impactful improvements like the Pickleball courts, which we should all appreciate. But in addition the Conservancy advocates for much bigger city-funded improvements, such as to the deteriorating support structure above the Amtrak rails north of 100th street. You’ll see in the interview that progress is being made in that area, albeit not fast enough for most of us.
The big problem is that the City underfunds the park, wrongly and naively thinking Riverside can be a magnet for private support like Central Park. Your beef should be with the Mayor and the Manhattan City Ciuncil delegation for not providing the major support Riverside needs.
In the meantime we should welcome Ms Birnbaum and wish her well.
The conservancy is a public-private conservancy that allows the city to systematically divest from Parks maintenance in order to throw more money at black holes like DOE, the Department of Buildings, and the NYPD. Conservancies are not effective vehicles for maintaining the parks, and every bit of money they have should go towards meaningful projects that protect Riverside for future generations.
I concur with you on the private support business. I have a massive beef with the city pols. But at the same time, I am happy to point out where the conservancy fails and has failed for far too long. The current problems are 15-20 years in the making. In the past, when initially created, the conservancy funded basic repairs. Look on their website and you’ll see the sorts of projects funded. They were nuts and bolts fixes. Not cosmetics like a passing fad such as pickleball.
Sorry for being blunt, but many of us have had it up to here watching taxpayer dollars and well-meant donations being lit on fire with precious little to show for it.
Well explained. I donate yearly. If enough others did as well the Conservancy would have the ability to do stuff like they do in Central Park. The City looks at RSP as a local step-child and CP as the face to the world crown jewel. And the East Side has all of the 5th Avenue 1% money.
If the Conservancy start a campaign reaching out to all of the large apartment buildings owners and residents along RSD and WEA, they will soon be in better financial conditon.
This is probably not her purview, but every day there are numerous people walking their dogs off leash at all times of day. I spoke parks department workers who were removing fallen branches and they said it’s scary for them too as they are afraid they could mistakenly hit a dog that runs across the path. (they were in a 2-seat vehicle with open sides). Why can’t dog owners respect the rules governing Riverside Park? They’re putting walkers at risk as well as their own dogs, If off-leash dogs start fighting there’s no way to pull them apart. A member of my family had her small dog attacked by an off-leash dog in Central Park and the wounds required extensive veterinarian care including stitches.
Here’s a win-win solution – stop these people and fine them, then use the proceeds for necessary park improvements. I know this likely is just wishful thinking, but when there are consequences for bad behavior, the bad behavior is more likely to go away.
Glad we have a new administrator here !
I like dogs but don’t see why other citizens using the park need to be subjected to them off leash. Even early morning hours – the rules state – if you have a dog run nearby – (within1-3 blocks) I think you can’t have your dog off leash. However, below 104 street early morning there is a herd of dogs off leash. Also I see dogs off leash on playing fields – also against the rules.
I have been chased by off leash dogs while on my bike, and bitten by one as well – in RS Park — during pandemic a dog ran up to us and started gobbling up our picnic. There seems to be no enforcement at all. What is to you — your charming pooch — to others is possibly a threat or worse!
Perhaps some of that $63 million allocated to the Soldiers and Sailors moment should be siphoned off to deal with the incredible flooding and resulting mud that makes walking north of 100th street after a rainfall nearly impossible.
And pickle ball is sorely needed. Players will end up donating to the upkeep of that part of the park, they’ll be so happy to have a decent play to play.
Please clean up the park and repair major structural issues to walls, stairs, paths, tunnels. Also, plant more trees and flowers and add more benches and lighting, esp north of 110th Street.
Finally after years parks brought in a firm to cut the trees growing out of the wall. If that wall goes we are looking at a $100 million fix.
Such a rough park, I never feel comfortable there after dark. Sometimes even in the day.
My friend, Riverside is one of the safer parks in Manhattan. There’s always someone around.
WHY WERE THE BIRD FEEDERS TAKEN DOWN? SO MANY PEOPLE INCLUDING MYSELF LOVED WATCHING THEM. THE AREA (FOREVER WILD) WAS DESIGNATED AS A BIRD SANCTUARY MANY YEARS AGO AND THE FEEDERS HAD BEEN THERE FOR 20 YEARS. RATS AND MICE DON’T GO NEAR FEEDERS B/C THEY DON’T CLIMB TREES. THE STEPS WHICH WERE DESTROYED LAST SPRING BY THE PARK TRYING TO DO “REPAIRS” WERE NEVER FIXED ALTHOUGH REPORTED MANY TIMES. THERE IS ALWAYS GARBAGE ON THE WALLS AND STREWN ALL OVER. THIS IS WHAT BRINGS RATS – NOT FEEDERS! PEDESTRIANS ARE CONSTANTLY BEING ANNOYED WITH MOTORIZED VEHICLES ON THE PATH. MUCH OF THE DAMAGE AND FLOODING HAS BEEN DUE TO THE PARK TEARING DOWN BUSHES AND TREES WHICH CAUSES EROSION. MANY PARTS HAVE NO TOP SOIL. SO MANY MAJOR ISSUES TO DEAL WITH AND THEY HAVE TIME TO TAKE DOWN A FEW BIRD FEEDERS?! IS THIS WHERE MY TAX MONEY GOES?
CENTRAL PARK HAS MORE FUNDING BECAUSE IT DOES A BETTER JOB AND HAS MORE TO OFFER. THERE ARE BIRD FEEDERS, BIRD WALKS AND TALKS AND AS ANYONE CAN SEE IT’S BEAUTIFULLY TAKEN CARE OF. PEOPLE WILL GIVE IF THEY SEE WHERE THE MONEY IS GOING.
I HOPE MS. BIRNBAUM WILL CHANGE COURSE. PICKLE BALL IS FINE, BUT THE REST OF THIS ONCE BEAUTIFUL PARK IS FALLING APART!!!
Hey WSR – please do not allow posts in ALL CAPS. It’s jarring and unnecessary.
Riverside Park has been underfunded by the city for years. Trees uncared for. Wooded areas neglected. Grassy fields and hillsides eroded and turned to fields of mud and weeds. Trash baskets have disappeared. Walks broken and flooded. A major break in the retaining wall below 85th St. goes unrepaired for 4 years. RPC is grossly understaffed. Parks Police are useless. Motor bikes should be confiscated. Central Park is meticulously cared for. Maybe the answer is to combine RPC and CPC. How about it, Gail Brewer?
The below comments reflect passion for the park and awareness of lack of funding. If you want to help in ways that don’t involve giving money, please consider volunteering, https://riversideparknyc.org/volunteer/
We pay high taxes in NYC. The Parks Department is funded through these revenues. We either need our politicians to kick and scream for better allocation of resources (we do not need an NYPD horseback unit for crying out loud) and put some of their discretionary dollars towards Riverside Park. Volunteering is fine but it lets the Parks Dept stay at pitiful staffing levels and doesn’t change the real need here, which is major construction and professional environmental maintenance of the city’s best park.
It looks worse than it did in the 1990s by far. Plenty of us were here for that.
Pickle ball! Love it.
I’m delighted they’re keeping the park up but have to say I’m not happy with the new stairs at 83rd. They slope downward and are slippery when wet with leaves. The new railing in the middle doesn’t help as it actually blocks you from moving to the other side to avoid a bad area and also makes passing difficult. I now go out of my way to use the ramp instead. I just hope the other new stairs will be done better.
This all sounds very nice but there are numerous fenced off areas at street level where massive sink holes have formed from roots poking through the street. Are those ever going to be fixed?