Pelham Bay Landfill, Bronx

By acreage, Pelham Bay Park is the largest park in the city. Its namesake is English settler Thomas Pell, who “purchased” 50,000 acres of land from the Siwanoy natives in 1654. It has many elements such as a golf course, beach, athletic field, historic mansion, and police shooting range. The least visited section of the park is the Pelham Bay Landfill, where the Hutchinson River widens into Eastchester Bay.

Looking at the bay from Pelham Bridge, the tree-covered Rodman Neck contrasts with the grassy artificial hilltop that is the landfill. With Shirley Chisholm State Park and Freshkills Park as precedents, will the public eventually have access to this landfill too?

State Parks of New York City

When I am not writing about waterways, I make videos on the history of parks. Recently I published one on the State Parks of New York City, the smallest and most populated region of New York State Parks.

There are 10 state parks in NYC. Concerning waterways, these parks include waterfronts, inlets, and ponds. Former railyards, landfills, salt marshes, and forests, are included in this collection of state parks. This videos is a good way to welcome the summer season.

Among those which I’ve documented here are:

• Roberto Clemente State Park
• Marsha P. Johnson State Park
• Shirley Chisholm State Park
• Bayswater Point State Park
• Clay Pit Ponds State Park Preserve

Fordham Landing, Bronx

Running from west to east, Fordham Road runs through busy shopping districts, the university that shares its name, and at Bronx Park the road continues east as Pelham Parkway. At its western tip Fordham Road continues into Manhattan with University Heights Bridge. Before the bridge was built, there was Fordham Landing, a dock on the Harlem River whose name will reappear on the map as the shoreline undergoes a transformation.

The site of Fordham Landing has remnants of the dock where ferries landed before the bridge opened in 1908. The cove here is polluted with runoff and trash. As the opposite shore in Manhattan experiences restoration, eventually the Bronx side of the Harlem River will also have a cleaner future.

Stony Point, Bronx

Having documented nearly all of New York City’s named hidden waterways, I’m taking this opportunity to tell the story of land forms that jut out into the water whose locations impacted the development of neighborhoods and the city. Tips such as Hunters Point, Breezy Point, Throgs Neck, and Clason Point appear as neighborhood names, but then there are forgotten ones such as Stony Point, the southernmost place in the Bronx, the city’s mainland borough.

As the tip of Stony Point is on private property ringed by fences and watched by security cameras, the nearest public access to it is the dead-end of East 132nd Street, the southernmost street in the Bronx. At this location, one is looking east towards Rikers Island and Lawrence Point, the northern tip of Astoria, Queens.

Source of Westchester Creek, Bronx

Westchester Creek is a head-scratcher for travelers as it is named after the county north of The Bronx, but doesn’t flow anywhere near it and never did. Prior to 1895, eastern Bronx was part of Westchester County and the neighborhood near this stream is named Westchester Square. This explains the stream’s name.

The present Westchester Creek is a tidal inlet of the East River with its head at East Tremont Avenue. Prior to the 1950s, the creek flowed further inland where the Bronx Psychiatric Center and the Hutchinson Metro Center stand today. When there’s enough rainfall, a vernal pond next to this office complex hints at the phantom stream that flowed here.

Hammond Creek, Bronx

On the northbound drive taking Throgs Neck Bridge, the anchorage tower rests at the tip of the bridge’s namesake, a fortress-turned-college campus. The road then runs above a cove in the Long Island Sound before landing on the Bronx mainland. Hammond Cove separates Throg’s Neck from Locust Point at the southeastern extreme of this borough.

This tidal inlet contains a private beach and two marinas in the most suburban part of the Bronx, where single-family houses and quiet are the most defining features.

St. Mary’s Park, Bronx

The largest park in the South Bronx has an Olmstedian terrain of hills, outcroppings, fields and woods. What is missing at St. Mary’s Park is a water feature. Considering the park’s age (1888) and size (35 acres), the question is raised whether it had a pond in the past.

The 1934 Praeger aerial survey of the park from the Municipal Archives, shows a ridge running down its midpoint and gentle slopes on either side. The park was about to be transformed by Robert Moses who added playgrounds and sports fields to it. But then there is the flat area on its western side, at St. Ann’s Avenue and E. 147th Street.

Bronx River at Gun Hill Road

From its source at Kensico Reservoir south to the New York Botanical Garden, the Bronx River flows nearly in a straight line direction alongside the parkway that shares its name. But there is one section of the river where it takes a brief turn east before returning to its linear course.

Here the river runs under six overpasses carrying Bronx River Parkway, Bronx Boulevard, and Gun Hill Road. There has been a bridge here since colonial times, lending its name to the Williamsbridge neighborhood.

Bridge Park, Bronx

As the island of Manhattan is nearly entirely ringed by a series of connected parks, the other four boroughs are also experiencing the opening of their shorelines to the public. Dozens of post-millennial parks lines the water’s edge providing resiliency against storm surges, open space for the public, and restored habitats.

On the Bronx side of the Harlem River sandwiched between the stream, a railway, and a highway is Bridge Park, the newest link in what will be a series of parks running from Kingsbridge to Mott Haven on a formerly industrial shoreline. At this park, one gets dramatic views from underneath three arch bridges linking the Bronx to upper Manhattan.

Turtle Cove, Bronx

The northeastern tip of the Bronx is where one finds the city’s biggest city-operated park. With 2,772 acres Pelham Bay Park is three times the size of Central Park. The most visited portion of the park is Orchard Beach, the crescent-shaped beach framed by the hilly nature preserves of Hunter and Twin islands.

Having previously written about the lagoon that separates the beach from the rest of the park, there’s also Turtle Cove, a smaller nature preserve inside the park. It is framed by three of the park’s internal roads and a forest.