Click here: Historic Roads
http://www.historicroads.org/sub7_1.htm

HISTORIC ROADS

Sitemap Contact

Reclaiming New York’s Henry Hudson Parkway

The Henry Hudson Parkway, was constructed from 1932-36 with federal money for park improvements under the centralized parkway authority headed by Robert Moses. It introduced a distinctly urban form of the American parkway. Its landscape was conceived as more than a scenic backdrop for motorists entering Manhattan; it was a grand linear park system which would showcase the city’s residents at play as well as its skyline and monuments.

At its best, the parkway was a seamless and intimate integration of park and roadway. In this Manhattan section, Robert Moses extended the park and the vision of Frederick Law Olmsted by covering a rail line with a terraced esplanade that lead to beautiful tunnels like this one giving New Yorkers their first true waterfront access. Today the corridor is undergoing an resurgence, with a greenway, recreation, economic development, and environmental conservation.

The new challenge is now restoration and rehabilitation of the parkway itself.An initiative by volunteers to designate the Henry Hudson Parkway a Scenic Byway, the first in New York City, will insure that the parkway complements instead of sabotages future planning for the corridor, including the waterfront.

This year the New York Metropolitan Transportation Council (a regional planning agency administering federal transportation funds) approved funding for the first corridor management plan for a New York City parkway, and will oversee the unprecedented collaboration of some 20 different city and state agencies in its development.

Meanwhile, volunteers continue to rescue the parkway one piece of blight at a time. Here, one of the many parkway overpasses in the Bronx was transformed by volunteers and the New York City Parks Department into a block-long green-street.

The natural area alongside the highway is being turned into a woodland trail and part of the city’s greenway system."Next volunteers are set to tackle the path under the parkway near the George Washington Bridge, one of the few places in northern Manhattan to access the waterfront and greenway.

With no agency claiming responsibility for maintenance (a crucial problem of the city’s parkways to be addressed by the CMP), the once-magnificent stairs and walkway has become a deterrent to residents’ enjoyment of their great new waterfront.

Look for daffodils and creative solutions to the challenge of designing a space like this.For more information about the Henry Hudson Parkway Scenic Byway initiative, see the website (http://www.henryhudsonparkway.org) or email at info@henryhudsonparkway.org

Text prepared by Hilary Kitasei, Henry Hudson Parkway Task Force, chair Edits for historicroads.org by Dan Marriott