Washington, D.C.--Congressman Eliot Engel announced that the National Park Service will work with the Harlem River Working Group to restore the banks of the Harlem River, reconnecting this waterfront with the communities adjacent to it in the Bronx and Manhattan.

The Park Service will provide technical assistance for planning and restoration work along the river and assist with organizational development to create a continuous greenway along both sides of the river while implementing restoration projects.

Rep. Engel said, “For too long New Yorkers have been cut off from their waterfront, usually by highways because it was easier to build them there. And while the Harlem River Valley has a natural beauty, there is a wholesale lack of public access to the river brought about by the highways and railroads.

“The banks of the river once offered open space and recreation to all, only to have access obliterated by development.”

Karen Argenti, of the Bronx Council for Environmental Quality said, "On behalf of the Bronx Council for Environmental Quality and the Harlem River Working Group, we are grateful to Congressman Engel for his
encouragement and support for our application to the National Park Service. Over 45 organizations and representatives joined us in support of this application, and we can not wait to get started. We are hoping to celebrate the 40th Anniversary of the Clean Water Act by restoring the Harlem River and its waterfront.”

The 11-term congressman said the Major Deegan Expressway (I87) on the Bronx side and the Harlem River Drive on the Manhattan side deny residents access to the river. Parks along the waterfront, he said, have been abandoned, piers and docks have been left to rot, and once thriving marshes have been overburdened by bulkheads and sewer outfalls.

Rep. Engel wrote to the National Park Service last July 16th to support an application for funding and staff support to reverse the decline in the river's natural and recreational resources. “The Harlem River waterfront,” he wrote, “has the potential to become the destination that historically it once was.”

He said a number of organizations are already involved in promoting restoration of the river, including Manhattan College and the Bronx Borough President’s Office. He noted the presence of a number of parks along the river’s banks, including Inwood Hill Park, an area which still has original growth trees and, in parts, has not been altered since pre-colonial times. It is where the Dutch are said to have purchased Manhattan for $24.