Harlemites Can Help Redesign Riverbank State Park: Take The Survey

HARLEM, NY — More than three million people visit Harlem's Riverbank State Park each year, and the state wants to know how to make that experience even better.

In a new online survey, the state is asking Harlemites to help inform an upcoming renovation of the park, which runs from West 138th to 145th streets atop a sewage treatment facility on the Hudson River.

The project will focus on Riverbank's south end, which includes a playground, restrooms, a softball field, basketball and handball courts, seating, and other amenities.

Up until Nov. 11, the state, alongside architecture firm WXY Studio, is asking residents to shape the upcoming rehab to the south courts area by filling out the survey.

Residents are being asked which parts of Riverbank's south area they use, how they would rate the facilities' conditions, and what changes they would like to see, among other questions.

No start date has been set for work to begin on the project, which is still in the "early stages of community input and design," a spokesperson for the state Parks Department told Patch.

It will be the latest in a series of renovations being carried out at Riverbank, which first opened to the public in 1993. Other recent projects have included installing new lighting for the park's outdoor turf field and renovating a community garden, which both wrapped up in recent months.

A new heating and ventilation system for the park's theater will be completed by June 2023, and renovations of the park's athletics locker room, aquatics locker room, and track and field will all happen within the next two years, the parks spokesperson said.

The park is now known officially as Denny Farrell Riverbank State Park, having been renamed in 2017 for the longtime State Assembly member who represented West Harlem for decades and died in 2018.

Take the Riverbank survey here.