Fall 2012

ArchitectureSchool of

CITYmultipliClimate Resiliency

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LocalDataDemocratizing Place-based Data Collection

Chris Hamby and Joseph LaGrand

The Harlem River WaterfrontGraduate Studio

Running for eight miles between Manhattan and the Bronx, the Harlem River is a little-used asset to the diverse communities along its banks. Up until the twentieth century, the river—technically a tidal strait—was a popular recreational area, home to many boathouses and picnic grounds. The construction of the Metro North lines, the Major Deegan Expressway, and several train yards, conflated by the crumbling disrepair of the landmark High Bridge, cut off the surrounding uplands neighborhoods from the river’s water-front. Today, many residents of surrounding Sputyen Duyvil, Marble Hill, Inwood, University Heights, Morris Heights, and High Bridge are unaware of this once-prominent body of water. Neighborhood reconnection to the waterfront presents a crucial opportunity to address local open space needs in the area especially in the critically underserved South Bronx.

Over the years, prompted by a growing inter-est in the city’s waterfront, academic planning studios, government agencies, and community groups have developed various recommendations and plans for the Harlem River. Each proposed methods to address the river’s disconnect from the city, but these various recommendations had never been consolidated into a holistic vision.With the necessity of a combined plan in mind, the Harlem River Working Group—a joint project of several community organizations, governmen-tal agencies, and commercial stakeholders—and the Trust for Public Land asked PSPD and the Pratt Center to incorporate the ideas of previous planning efforts with community feedback to create a complete, inspirational vision for the river. Nine students led by Eve Baron and Ron Shiffman, with the assistance of David Frisco and Leigh Mignogna from the Communication Design program, Jessie Braden and Juan Camilo of the Pratt Geospatial Analysis Lab, and Rebecca Crim-mins of the Pratt Center, reviewed existing pro-

posals, including comprehensive plans from MIT, NYU, and Columbia planning studios, state DOT transportation plans, and various proposals from the Department of City Planning and the Bronx Borough President’s Office. Proposals for re-envisioning the Harlem River have been produced over many years and the class worked to identify the most desirable elements of each plan to incorporate into a broader vision.

After developing a comprehensive overview

of the site, the studio hosted visioning sessions at three different locations along the Harlem River: Hostos College, Bronx Community College, and Lehman College. The locations were chosen strategically to span the length of the river to both allow community members up and down the shoreline to participate and to strengthen com-munity ties with higher education institutions who wished to be partners in the planning pro-cess.

Community members participating in the first visioning session, held at Hostos College in the southern section of the Harlem River area.

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The studio developed materials to clearly layout prior planning recommendations, to show potential ways forward, and, most importantly, to acquaint community members with the river itself, since it currently is not a strong piece of the area’s identity. During the sessions, par-ticipants were presented a flyover video of the river and surrounding communities highlighting key sites and proposals. Participants were asked to map out their connections to the river and how they currently accessed the waterfront. Finally, participants were asked to envision what they wanted to see on the waterfront and how they saw their communities making use of a newly accessible Harlem River.

Incorporating the prior proposals, ideas and feedback from the three visioning sessions, and new ideas from the studio, students devel-oped a final map outlining where they saw opportunities for new public space and develop-ment along the water. The map included a boardwalk “tow path” along difficult stretches of shoreline, boat launches and boat houses, a revamped High Bridge, new open space, and waterfront public transportation. Focusing on the need to connect communities along and across the river, the studio identified the best existing opportunities for greenway connections, pedes-trian bridges and walkways and shoreline access for residents of upland neighborhoods.

On June 11th, the studio pre-sented the draft plan to the

public and the

Bronx Borough President at the Bronx Museum of the Arts. Currently, the Pratt Center is compil-ing a mass-produced pamphlet on the holistic vision for neighborhood-wide distribution. This summer excavation began on newly purchased public land adjacent to the High Bridge. As aware-ness around the Harlem River vision grows and as more stakeholders join the planning process, the Harlem River is restitching two boroughs to its waterfront after decades of disconnection.

Chris Hamby is a third year CRP student. He currently works for SEIU Local 32BJ, the largest property ser-vices union in the country.

Joseph LaGrand is a second year CRP student. He is currently working as a Community Planning Fellow at Brooklyn’s Community Board 2.

View of the Harlem River waterfront looking north toward the Broadway Bridge

Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO) signage under the High Bridge. “Combined sewer systems (CSS)

are sewers that are designed to collect storm water runoff, domestic sewage, and industrial

wastewater in the same pipe. During rain events, when storm water enters the sewers, the capacity

of the sewer system may be exceeded and the excess effluent will be discharged directly to the

receiving water. A combined sewer overflow (CSO) is the discharge from a combined sewer system

that is caused by snow melt or storm water runoff.” There are 52 CSO outfalls along the Harlem River.

Source: NYS DEC and OasisMap