Riverbank State Park

Oceane Mercadal

Activity 8.1

My group decided to visit Riverbank State Park in Harlem for a class assignment. It was not that hard to get to the park even though I had never been to Harlem before. Once I arrived at the park I was amazed to see this enormous open space, which I had never heard of. It probably took me 30min to get there with the bus, which made me question why coach has never brought us up there to practice on the track.

The park is 28 acres and is the only one of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere. It contains and indoor Olympic size pool, a covered skating rink available to ice skate during the winter and roller blade during the summer, a 800 seat cultural theatre, an outdoor 25yard lap pool, 4 tennis courts, 4 basket ball courts, a 400meter- 8lane track with a soccer and football field, and many more interesting features who attract public from all around New York. The park is opened all year round from 6am to 11pm.

The only unfortunate part of this park, which Patricia Fraser one of my group members told me is that the state, is thinking about closing the park. After having done some research on the Internet I came across an article on Facebook saying that the state wanted to reduce the working hours of the park. The page information is: Save Riverbank State Park hours from being cut in the State budget: Amsterdam News – “Community rallies to keep Riverbank State Park open”. Just like Jane Jacobs said in her book The Death and Life of Great American cities, “Parks are volatile places. They tend to run to extremes of popularity and unpopularity.” (P.89) Several teams practice at Riverbank State Park early in the morning. Cutting hours would result in these teams loosing a practicing area and therefore compromising their sport. Sure the park might not be as popular as it should be but the state doesn’t have anything else for this open space. It would be such a shame to waist 28 acres of green land. The park is only 30minutes away from the city and yet it feels like you are miles away. People are relaxed they go there to chill with their friends or family and enjoy the weather. During the winter the indoor rink allows the park to remain ‘alive’ meaning that the facility is used through out the entire year.

When I went to visit the park with my group members several people where running around the park. Families where relaxing on the grass enjoying the sun, some kids where having fun in the playground under the surveillance of there nannies and a baseball team was practicing on the appropriate field. My friends and I walked by the baseball field near the water and the view was simply breath taking. We stopped for a moment and started taking pictures of the view (i unfortunately can't put the pictures up because when i tried for the previous activity it broke my phone) because it is amazing how you can see Manhattan on one side and New Jersey on the other. If I had the time I honestly would go back to this park just to sit on a bench and enjoy the view of the river. Central Park is a very nice park to relax and have fun with your friends but the view from Riverbank State Park is nothing compared to it, which is why I would bring some friends to chill there if we had the time.