FYI: The Battle Over Dead Dog Park May 1 1994
NEIGHBORHOOS REPORT: WASHINGTON
HEIGHTS; A Battle Lost, a Bridge Won
By MONIQUE P. YAZIGI
Published: May 01, 1994
Published: May 01, 1994
After
two years of community opposition to plans to build a new psychiatric center at
165th Street just west of Riverside Drive, the ground has been cleared and
construction is well under way.
But
the battle was not for naught, say the center's defeated opponents as they wait
for their consolation prize: a $2 million footbridge connecting Washington
Heights to Fort Washington Park, a verdant, virtually unused 146-acre strip
tucked away along the Hudson River under the George Washington Bridge.
The hospital, the New
York State Psychiatric Institute, is being built with
Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center. The
site is a piece of land along the West Side's greenbelt long believed to belong
to the Parks Department. Years ago, the
New York City Parks Commissioner, Henry J. Stern, even named it Dead Dog Park…because he
once found a canine corpse there.
An overgrown woodland
dotted with abandoned tires and litter, Dead Dog Park occupies a pivotal
location partway between the giant Columbia-Presbyterian complex and Fort Washington
Park, a well-equipped but little-used oasis (eight tennis courts, softball
fields, sprawling river views, a tiny red lighthouse). Only the most
determined parkgoer dares the journey under deserted tunnels and across
oncoming traffic where Riverside Drive turns into the Henry Hudson Parkway.
Community groups
adopted Dead Dog Park, pressuring the Parks Department to clean it up. So it was with
surprise and alarm that they learned of plans for the psychiatric institute. It
turned out that the land belonged to Columbia University and
Columbia-Presbyterian, which had had it condemned, turning it over to the
state. And the state, at the hospital's request, approved the use for the
institute. Residents launched petition drives aimed at the state,
Columbia-Presbyterian and Parks, asserting that a parking lot on the east side
of Riverside would be a better site.
And
while the powerful partnership of the state and Columbia-Presbyterian
prevailed, the drive impressed upon them the need to mollify the community. That
is translating into financial support for the footbridge.
"It's
a loss to the city to put the psychiatric center up on that space," said
Jessica Brockington, a member of the Heads Up Project/Hacia Adelante
Neighborhood Association, which lobbied for the footbridge. "But if the
building provides a facelift to the neighborhood and we get access into the
most beautiful park in the city, they will live with the center."