Bronx environmental advocates are urging borough residents to raise their voices for better waterfront access and better funding for public parks.
Environmental advocates urged New Yorkers to fight for more green space and waterfront access at the 31st Bronx Parks Speak Up Feb. 22. Groups attending the event, including the Harlem River Working Group and South Bronx Unite, are hoping community members will join them in demanding that lawmakers do better for the people of the Bronx, who deal with little to no waterfront access and underfunded parks.
The Bronx Speak Up is organized annually by the Bronx Coalition of Parks and Green Spaces, and draws hundreds of community members each year. This year’s event was held at Lehman College and also included tabling by some of the borough’s biggest environmental groups.
“We’re seeing developments being built, but the question is whether there’s going to be any space remaining for community access,” said Chauncy Young, Coordinator for the Harlem River Working Group and a member of the waterfront panel, which also included representatives from Friends of the Hudson River Greenway, Bronx River Alliance, and Friends of the Hutchinson River Greenway.
The Harlem River Working Group wants to create new greenway routes and parkland trails. They’re also working to restore the river’s water quality, allowing Bronx residents to swim and fish in the river.
“Waterfronts in this city are public spaces, but if you can’t get to the water itself, it’s not public,” Young said.
South Bronx Unite, another of the borough’s prominent advocacy groups, is working towards similar goals. The group’s Mott Haven-Port Morris Waterfront plan would give over 100,000 people access to the waterfront while also mitigating the effects of climate change and air pollution. The plan includes new parks at multiple sites, including Alexander Avenue Extension and the East 132nd Street Pier. The planned infrastructure changes and added green space would also help to offset the effects of storm surges on the borough as water levels continue to rise.
The land is used as of Feb. 2025 by Harlem River Yards, which leases the land to be used for waste transfer stations and fossil fuel plants. The air quality in the borough suffers as a result; According to a 2010 study from the National Institutes of Health, 15% of children in the Bronx are asthmatic, higher than the national average of 9%.
“Everybody knows somebody who has asthma in this neighborhood,” said Mychal Johnson, co-founder and board member of South Bronx Unite. “And that’s why we fight.”
“We recognize that these unfortunate statistics around asthma are a result of the environment around us,” said South Bronx Unite senior organizer Matthew Shore, who was also a member of the waterfront panel at the Speak Up. “We have all of these highways, polluted infrastructure and lack of green spaces.”
Jennifer Hoppa, Chief Strategy Officer at NYC Parks, told attendees that it all comes down to funding. She reminded attendees that the Parks Department invested $3.2 billion in 2024 to strengthen parks across the city, but did not specify how those funds will be distributed borough to borough. While the Bronx boasts more green space than any other borough, it receives less funding than Manhattan, Brooklyn or Queens, according to data from New Yorkers For Parks. The borough also struggles with unequal access to parks, with bigger and well-maintained parks like Pelham Bay Park and Van Cortlandt Park located in high-income neighborhoods.
Hoppa and other advocates at the event emphasized the importance of community members stepping up to demand that lawmakers funnel more money into expanding access to green space and waterfronts in the Bronx.
“It’s not enough for lawmakers to say ‘yes, we support you,’” said Nilka Martell, founder of community group Loving the Bronx. “We can’t do anything without money. Funding is everything.”
Mayor Eric Adams promised in 2021 to allocate 1% of New York City’s budget to the city’s parks, but he did not live up to that promise; the Fiscal Year 2024 budget allocated around half that amount to parks.
“Most other major cities have 2 to 3% of their city budget dedicated to their parks,” said Diana Finch, a resident of Bronx Park East/Pelham Parkway and longtime advocate for the borough. “No matter how hard the parks service works, they are fighting a lack of funding. It’s an uphill battle.”
Finch said she hopes the next budget invests more money in the city’s parks and waterfronts, and asserted that the benefits to the community could not be overstated.
“Everyone’s health would improve, not just physical but mental as well,” Finch said. “Kids would be more motivated and do better in school, crime would go down. The community would thrive.”
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