Activity 8.1

Jennifer Rios
Activity 8.1

My group decided to go to the Riverbank State Park, which is located on the Hudson River in Manhattan. This location was chosen by another group member named Patricia, who seems to know her way around Manhattan very well unlike me- who had no idea this park even existed. I have lived in New York for twenty years and was always a huge fan of parks when I was a child. It was very common to find me in a park every weekend with my brothers in order for us to satisfy our need to compete against each other. Central Park was always a big deal to me because of its size and the environment, which seemed to be the closest that I would ever get to nature due to the fact that I am a city girl. Now that I have seen the Riverbank State Park, I think I have found a new favorite park to spend my time in. With a park this large- and just 45 minutes away from my neighborhood- it was astonishing to find out that I was not even slightly aware of this park existing.

Upon entering this park, I was taken aback by the many recreation opportunities that are provided to the public. Such opportunities range from a pool, a skating rink, a restaurant, and a theatre. The park also had plenty of open space, which is very important in terms of creating a balance between cities and nature. This open space is beneficial to the residents of New York City due to the fact that most of these people are used to being surrounded by buildings. In Riverbank State Park, New Yorkers are able to get away from the streets of the city and enjoy some time with nature. This open space is also beneficial to people who do not participate in any of the recreation activities and instead are able to, “look at the passing scene and the pleasure of being comfortably under a tree while doing so” (Whyte, 46). Despite the fact that the inside of the park consisted of a lot of open spaces- symbolizing nature and freedom- the outside of the park that I happened to come across gave me different feelings and impressions of the park. While on my way to Riverbank State Park, I was able to catch a glimpse of its exterior, which consisted of dark grey walls. I believe that these walls are ways to fence off the park from the rest of the city, in order to keep it safe from intruders who may do harm to the park. I agree that the park must be kept safe but I also feel that parks should not be closed off to the surrounding areas. By preventing such restriction, more people would be aware of this park, such as people like me- who had no idea that this park existed.

Despite the exterior of the park looking as if it would like to keep people away from enjoying its many recreation opportunities, there seemed to be a good amount of diversity in regards to the people who were spending time at the park. I saw a majority of minorities as well as Caucasians but what I found interesting was that there was a separation among the differing racial groups according to the type of recreation they were taking part in. For example, when it came to people playing basketball or just hanging out by the basketball courts, a majority of these people were minorities. Caucasians were more likely to be found in the skating rink compared to the basketball court. I found this to be very intriguing because despite efforts to bring people together through commonplaces such as parks, and no matter how restricting it looks from the outside, people tend to influence themselves in terms of where and who they decide to congregate with. “Thus [the spaces] fail in their central pretension- that of eliminating gross differences between architectural and urbanistic space, of extending in time the areas in which urban life could freely flow back and forth between the two” (Whyte, 45).