Council Panel Supports Extending Hudson Greenway

By JESSICA MARQUEZ

The New York City Council Committee on Parks and Recreation on Thursday called upon state agencies to support completion of the Hudson River Greenway, a pedestrian walkway connecting Lower Manhattan to the border of Westchester County,

The project remains half done, now extending from Battery Park in Lower Manhattan to the George Washington Bridge in Upper Manhattan.

“The Hudson River Greenway and the wonderful riverfront access afforded to all Manhattanites is non-existent to the residents of the Bronx,” said Bronx Councilman Cohen. “I am proud to support this resolution at the New York City Council and strongly support a continuous Hudson River Greenway.”

He added: “On a personal note, my colleagues do know how often I use the Manhattan portion of the Greenway with my bike, so it would be great I could actually go from Riverdale straight down to City Hall.”

Also in attendance at the hearing were Cliff Stanton, Greenway Director of the Kingsbridge-Riverdale-Van Cortlandt Development Corporation (KRVC) and Rosemary Ginty, Vice Chair Community Board Aide of the Bronx. Both were in favor and expressed their support of the Greenway extension.

“Community Board 8 wholeheartedly supports an all river Hudson River Greenway,” said Rosemary Ginty, vice-chairwoman of the board. “We even established a special Greenway community as part of the community board to work through the many issues so that we can get to an all River Greenway.”

Cliff Stanton of the Kingsbridge-Riverdale-Van Cortlandt Development Corp. echoed the sentiments.

“KRVC has collected over 2,000 individual signatures and over 50 local businesses and instructions supporting the Greenway,” Stanton said.

Stanton added his group promotes the Greenway by staging the Riverdale Riverfest, which gives “thousands of local residents and visitors each year a rare opportunity to recreate along the banks of the majestic Hudson River waterfront”, something that the residents of Riverdale and the Bronx are denied access to.

Proposals to extend the gap to the Westchester border have been stymied because the train tracks used by Metro-North and Amtrak in Riverdale run close to the water, making pedestrian access perilous.