by Brennan Ortiz
I walked fixed along the path, at parts soil and worn bits of asphalt and delineated by pieces of wood which lined the edges. Looming over me was a mixed canopy from tulip, maple and sweetgum trees among others. The melodic chirps of a redwing blackbird above and the shuffling and sudden thuds of chipmunks and squirrels nearby filtered much of the cacophony from vehicles raging along the parkway close by. I had almost forgotten about the river, just feet away from me, its currents waded silently through banks of earth and vegetation, carrying with it a pair of ducks.
The scene and ambience in their entirety were reminiscent of a bucolic realm, the kind which triggers feelings of natural serenity.
Where was I? Simply and emphatically, the Bronx River Forest. I was in the Bronx!
The northernmost borough of New York City occupies a curious place in the minds of both New Yorkers and the world alike. Utterances of the Bronx conjure its better known mythos as that other borough notorious for being a cesspool of crime and the drug epidemic during the later 1900s, the cultural and social backdrop under which Hip-Hop and its corresponding movement were bred, and of course, the sacred grounds atop which the country’s most famous baseball team reenacts triumphs and losses.
Today, the Bronx’s burning days are long behind us and its previous unparalleled crime is just as much a part of the past. At the same time, despite it fostering the genesis of Hip-Hop, this culture is no longer endemic to the borough. So what is the Bronx, the outsider might ask? Certainly a quintessential microcosm of New York City; a peninsular confluence of diverse, vibrant cultures and traditions. But I’d like to offer an alternative and lesser known facet of the borough: its impressive and little-known natural landscape.
Beyond its array of vibrant ethnic enclaves, and the initiatives, planned and underway, that are now redefining the borough, the Bronx manages to achieve a feat that its sister boroughs have yet to accomplish: balancing the built environment with the natural. With a population density of 35,000 people per square mile, Bronx County is the third most densely populated county in the United States after New York County (Manhattan) and Kings County (Brooklyn).
Just about a quarter of the borough’s 42 square miles of land is public parkland or open space. Even more, the Bronx has the most parkland of any New York City borough relative to its size. But the Bronx’s masses of green didn’t come about reactively, as did those in much of Manhattan for instance, whose exorbitant population had been starved of parks for so long. Instead, the mainland borough’s parks system precedes the creation of the borough itself, having been established largely by the movement for parks spearheaded by John Mullaly, a newspaperman who advocated for the preservation of natural lands as an asset for the public.
As a result of the growing demand for parks, in 1888, a city commission acquired nearly 4,000 acres of land throughout the Bronx to form the borough’s park system. From this acquisition, the lands that now comprise the borough’s flagship parks were preserved. And so then as now, Bronxites had access to the vast rocky shorelines of Pelham Bay Park, the dense woodlands of Van Cortlandt Park, and the Bronx River watershed that runs through Bronx Park.
For a county of 1.4 million people, and a city of over 8 million and growing, such open spaces are vital to the quality of life and well-being of its inhabitants. The natural landscape serves as a precious refuge from the built environment. Not only are parks democratic spaces and in being so, are engines of discovery, but they are increasingly becoming models for a changing environment and climate, as they are equipped with innovative technology and infrastructure to handle some of the most pressing problems that urban communities face today.
Still and more immediately, this landscape hosts the forms of nature that are seemingly more elusive on a regular city street. An open air museum of flora and fauna, familiar and novel alike, from which we can gaze at the precious balance between the built environment and the vast networks of ecosystems which were here long before.
Surrounding oneself in nature isn’t just a primal satisfaction for us humans, whether we admit it or not. Many of us intuitively suspect that nature bestows some greater change within us, and science has confirmed what we’ve already known. Scientific studies, such as The Human Health and Social Benefits of Urban Forests (2016) by Dovetail Inc., have shown that overall, exposure to the natural environment results in physiological, psychological and even spiritual benefits. After a stroll in nature, people have been found to function with greater cognitive power and clarity of thought, for instance.
So considering the advantages that can be gained with nature and that most of us appreciate it, what are, if any, the challenges facing the natural environment in today’s society? The challenges regarding the role the natural environment plays in our society can be more keenly observed in cities. Older cities, in particular, had done much to further efforts of development as they experienced growth, with the inclusion of a parks system and open space as an afterthought. And so many cities lack a cohesive network of diverse green spaces that cater to the specific needs of not just neighboring communities, but of the environment as well. It may come as a surprise that the Bronx is something of an anomaly in this case. However, even more resounding today, is the issue of park equity within urban communities, as low-income neighborhoods of color often have inadequate access to parks, and/or access to parks which are themselves inadequate in their amenities and facilities.
The New York City borough of the Bronx may serve as a good model to present to the world how a largely populated and dense urban area can still boast a large number of parks. Yet, the borough’s largest parks, comprising much of the parkland in the Bronx, are found along its northern reaches and are therefore largely inaccessible to the larger and more dense communities of the South Bronx. The Trust for Public Land, which evaluates park access and quality in America’s 100 largest cities, has identified the South Bronx neighborhood of Hunts Point, for instance, as an area with very high level of park need.
Additionally, many of the playgrounds and smaller pockets of green that dot the borough, are lacking in their offerings; often shabby lots of asphalt with outdated facilities and unwelcoming edges.
It is problems like these that New York City’s Parks Department is now honing in on with their Framework for an Equitable Future initiative. Among the focal points of the department, is an effort to serve under-resourced neighborhoods and areas outside a 10-minute walk of a park.
At the same time, Parks’ Park Without Borders program is reimagining the role that parks plays in communities by redesigning entry points and edges of such parks, to create more integrated and welcoming access points.
And so, as a new generation of urban planners and engaged community leaders continue to improve our neighborhoods and cities overall, we must consider open and democratic spaces a vital part of these improvements. Parks are not just isolated pockets of vegetation. Today, parks serve as the cornerstones of a community’s quality of life, providing opportunities for education, recreation, wander and even resiliency in neighborhoods already afflicted with the effects of climate change. For these reasons, we must see to it that any and everyone can enjoy the wild in their own backyard.