by Olivia Young<\/p>\n
Spuyten Duyvil Shorefront Park is finally open to the public after five years of grueling volunteer work to restore trails eroded by rainfall and overgrown with invasive species. <\/p>\n
Jodie Col\u00f3n, founder of the Friends of Spuyten Duyvil \u2014 a group of volunteers, called stewards, trained by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation to maintain green spaces \u2014 said hundreds of people poured their time and energy into the park. Not only stewards, but local high school students and involved residents too, she said. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m so excited,\u201d Col\u00f3n said, noting in past years, volunteers have put in 500 hours annually. \u201cIt\u2019s so much work that it\u2019s hard to grasp the magnitude of what we\u2019ve done.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 6.6 acre park sits beneath the Henry Hudson Bridge, and is home to several native New York species, wildlife that leaves behind small footprints in the mud, and a pond fed by stormwater. Sections of it are also at the base of a steep edge, where rainfall rushes down and washes out the trails, creating ruts in the soil and exposing rocks, roots and other tripping hazards. <\/p>\n
Over the years, volunteers cleared weeds and fast-growing vines, and also dragged buckets of soil, hauled in rocks and reshaped logs to prevent runoff along the trail, a process that largely consisted of trial and error, Col\u00f3n explained. She added it required constant maintenance to upkeep. They are now trying out a soil that is a mix of sand, silt and clay known for improving drainage. They won\u2019t be sure it\u2019s effective until the next rainfall, Col\u00f3n said. <\/p>\n
The park was finally deemed safe to visitors after environmental protection organization Natural Areas Conservancy, who has also been helping with restoration efforts over the past month, officially designated the trails, Col\u00f3n said. <\/p>\n
Barricades and caution tape blocked off much of the park\u2019s trails until June 6 \u2014 also known as National Trails Day \u2014 when more than 30 residents joined Col\u00f3n and Urban Park Ranger Lenora Todaro for a walkthrough of the park\u2019s now smoothed-over trails, pointing out various plant types and their histories. <\/p>\n
Todaro gestured to a patch of snakeroot, and explained when colonial people first arrived in America, they used to feed the native New York plant to their cows. But, snakeroot contained a toxic alcohol called tremetol, and when people drank the cows\u2019 milk they fell ill with \u201cmilk sickness\u201d and died. <\/p>\n
Spuyten Duyvil Shorefront Park is also scattered with large, gray rocks that have pronounced horizontal layers. Todaro said they could have been put there by humans, or they could\u2019ve been picked up and brought there by the Wisconsin Ice Sheet \u2014 the glacier that formed the Bronx \u2014 during the Ice Age. <\/p>\n
Opening up the trails is an opportunity for residents to engage with green spaces, but it will also help maintain the park, Col\u00f3n said. As people walk on the trails, their feet will grind down leaves that Col\u00f3n and volunteers would typically rake, and crush weeds that would have to be pulled. Those visitors could also become volunteers as they build a connection to the park, she added. <\/p>\n
A section of the trail is still blocked off, and there are parts of it that may be too steep to be accessible, but part of the goal of reopening is to see how the public adjusts to the park and work from there. The goal was to make the trails walkable, not to repair them in full, Col\u00f3n said. <\/p>\n
Terri Levine, a longtime resident who has been walking the park for years, said while she\u2019s always enjoyed the trails, they are much easier to navigate now. The number of people like Col\u00f3n who are committed to maintaining it is a comfort, Levine added. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s also a feeling that it would stay this way,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd that things will get even better and better.\u201d <\/p>\n
One volunteer, 76-year-old Annette Sambolin, is also a pathkeeper, or someone who is trained under the parks department\u2019s Super Steward Urban People Advancing Trails and Habitat, or PATH, program. She\u2019s worked since the Covid-19 pandemic to clear invasive plants, adding she was happy to make the area one that other people would enjoy. <\/p>\n
Col\u00f3n cited a similar motivation behind her efforts. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re doing this for the rest of the community,\u201d Col\u00f3n said. \u201cWe want them to experience what we know is so special about having places like this in such an overbuilt, urban environment.\u201d <\/p>\n
Todaro, who grew up in Riverdale, said she appreciated the serenity of the park in a place like New York City. She admired the look of the Henry Hudson Bridge against vibrant forestry, and the way a visitor could glance from the branches down to the pond and the racoon footprints surrounding it. <\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody needs a place to get some peace and rest,\u201d she said. \u201cEvery time there\u2019s another park and another trail, that\u2019s another opportunity for that.\u201d <\/p>\n
\n\t\tKeywords<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\tSpuyten Duyvil Shorefront Park,\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t Riverdale,\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t Bronx parks,\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t trail restoration,\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t park reopening,\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t Friends of Spuyten Duyvil,\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t Jodie Col\u00f3n,\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t volunteer conservation\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"by Olivia Young Spuyten Duyvil Shorefront Park is finally open to the public after five years of grueling…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":265015,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[128,86553,102688,102689,9,24,63,102687,1778,102685,129,131,130,102686,102690],"class_list":["post-265014","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-the-bronx","tag-bronx","tag-bronx-parks","tag-friends-of-spuyten-duyvil","tag-jodie-colon","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-park-reopening","tag-riverdale","tag-spuyten-duyvil-shorefront-park","tag-the-bronx","tag-the-bronx-headlines","tag-the-bronx-news","tag-trail-restoration","tag-volunteer-conservation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265014","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=265014"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265014\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/265015"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=265014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=265014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=265014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}