Riverbank State Park

Underneath a skating rink, two pools, an amphitheater, garden plots and all manner of playing fields, a giant plant processes a million Manhattanites’ waste water before discharging it into the Hudson. Riverbank State Park is both the site of a decades-long struggle for environmental justice, and New York’s second most popular state park.

Riverbank’s 28.5 acres, hosting almost four million visitors a year, offers dozens of activities and commanding views of the Hudson, all atop the North River Water Treatment Plant, which cleans up after a million New Yorkers. The park turns a necessary eyesore into a community asset. But this clever compromise was hard to come by and remains tenuous, as concerns over the health effects of the plant’s operations persist.

In 1965, raw sewage produced by hundreds of thousands of inhabitants of Manhattan’s West Side still poured directly into the Hudson River. Like the city’s polluted air, water quality was disastrous. As people become more aware of the sorry and unsanitary state of the urban environment—in New York City and across the country—they successfully pushed for new laws that would dictate tighter environmental standards.

In the early 1960s, plans called for a wastewater treatment plant serving all of Manhattan’s West Side to be located between 70th and 72nd Street and the Hudson River, but such a small site for so much waste would require a double-decked, and more expensive to build, plant. Perhaps more importantly, a plant was deemed “incompatible” with plans for the immediate area, where new housing and a cruise ship terminal were envisioned behind Lincoln Center.

A move to 137th Street was approved at a hearing held in 1962. By the time John Lindsay was elected mayor in 1965, the land for the North River plant had been purchased, and the Federal government had sued New York City, requiring it to treat raw sewage before discharging it. Mayor Lindsay was aware that the plant, while a huge boon to the city’s environment as a whole, was no asset to the West Harlem residents who would have to live with it in their midst. Lindsay commissioned Philip Johnson—most recently the architect of the New York State Theater at Lincoln Center—to transform the North River plant into “one of the largest fountains in the world,” with jets of water shooting from the roof of the plant. Johnson’s design did not go over well, and opposition to the plant mounted.

The West Harlem community, with leadership from Congressman William Ryan, Manhattan Borough President Percy Sutton, and District Leader David N. Dinkins vehemently opposed plans for the plant. In the summer of 1968, racial tensions were high, and the plant was seen as a racist act. At one particularly tense Board of Estimate hearing, one speaker said in frustration, “You want a riot this summer, you build the plant.” In fact, interceptors leading sewage to the new plant were already under construction. When it became clear that North River would be built over the most strenuous objection, the emphasis shifted in 1968 to a new proposal for a park on top of the plant—something which had been done at several sites in Japan. Recreation space was sorely needed in the area. It was an attempt, as the New York Times editorialized, “to turn an atrocity into an asset.” Riverbank would be built as one of New York City’s first State Parks.

Though West Harlem residents’ voices were not heard in the siting of the plant, they were highly involved in the design and planning process for the park. In 1968 and 1969 community conferences were held to develop a community vision for the park, which would ultimately take decades to complete.

The plan was for the park to bridge over train tracks and the Henry Hudson Parkway to link the new roof park to Riverside Park. A design was developed between 1973 and 1975 by the Harlem-based architectural firm Bond Ryder Associates, with landscape architect Lawrence Halprin. The park design met the recreation needs identified by community representatives—pools, skating, athletic facilities, even a marina—but it was not built after costs exceeded the project budget. A new design was created by the architect Richard Dattner in 1980. As inflation led construction costs to grow, the design was reevaluated and every expense reconsidered. Construction finally began in 1987.

The first phase of the water treatment plant had been completed in 1986. At a cost of $1.3 billion, it was the largest non-military public works project in the US in 50 years. When it started to operate, residents noticed new foul smells in the air—the scent of rotten egg, from too much hydrogen sulfide. In the rush to build the plant, motivated by a series of lawsuits, serious errors had been made in the plant’s design and construction. The plant’s potential impact on air quality had never been taken into account. The North River plant was another air polluting facility in a neighborhood with an already excessive environmental burden. With six out of seven of Manhattan’s bus depots, and its only 24 hour marine garbage transfer station, West Harlem residents already suffered from excessive asthma and air pollution problems.

West Harlem residents rallied to have these issues addressed. On Martin Luther King Day, 1988, “The Sewage Seven” –including area Democratic District Leaders, a State Senators and a Councilmember–were arrested for holding up traffic at 7 a.m. on the West Side Highway in front of the North River Sewage Treatment Plant. Gas-masked, placard-carrying community residents held up traffic across from the plant on Riverside Drive to dramatize the situation.

In 1992 WE ACT (West Harlem Environmental Action, Inc.), with the National Resources Defense Council, a local day care center and 7 residents, sued the DEP and New York City for operating North River as a public and private nuisance, arguing that the plant had injured their health, property values, and quality of life. A 1993 settlement led to an extensive and expensive fix of the plant’s defects.

The same year, Riverbank State Park was finally inaugurated. It had cost 130 million dollars and taken twenty-five years. Two bridges cross the Henry Hudson Parkway, at 138th and 145th Streets, leading to a vast platform that holds everything from a skating rink to garden plots, an 800 seat theater, a restaurant, tennis courts, a 400 meter track, fields for softball and football, two swimming pools and a waterfront amphitheater. Riverbank also boasts what may be the city’s coolest carousel. With thirty six animals designed by local first and second graders, you can ride an octopus or a chihuahua to the sounds of Rick James’ “Superfreak.”

While the playing fields are Astroturf, there are grassy picnic areas and thirty-five foot tall trees, all supported by the functioning plant directly below. Today North River provides wastewater treatment for hundreds of thousands of people from Bank Street to Inwood. North River treats about 125 million gallons of wastewater every day during dry weather, and it is designed to handle up to 340 million gallons a day when the weather is wet. Water quality on the Hudson has improved dramatically in the last decades.

In the spring of 2010, budget cuts threatened to sharply curtail access to the park, but Riverbank users and advocates, along with park supporters across the state, rallied and advocated to maintain access to this park and others. Riverbank remains open to the public seven days a week, from six a.m. until eleven at night. Meanwhile, area residents are concerned about North River’s operations, reporting a resurgence of foul odors, as well as sightings of dark smoke and foamy and greasy water coming from the plant. Riverbank State Park’s delicate compromise between our many environmental needs is never guaranteed.
—Mariana Mogilevich, July 2010