In Wake Of Petition, Parks And Columbia U. Push To Mend Harlem Pond

HARLEM, NY — In the wake of a community petition pushing for the city to restore Harlem's Morningside Park pond and waterfall, the Parks Department and Columbia University announced a new partnership this past weekend to find solutions.

On Saturday, NYC Parks and Columbia University's Climate School hosted an event at Morningside Park's pond on City of Water Day to officially launch their partnership study to identify approaches to containing and preventing harmful algal bloom in the body of water.

“On New York City Water Day, we are proud to shine a bright light on our partnership with NYC Parks to study and find solutions to harmful algae blooms, one of which has long plagued Morningside Park’s pond," President of Columbia University Minouche Shaik said in a news release.

Parks Department created a working group to the study the pond in 2021 that included Columbia acaademics, and in 2022 the first study was initiated that confirmed the high level of toxicity of the harmful algae bloom within the Harlem pond.

Under the new partnership, NYC Parks will collaborate with scientists at Columbia University's Climate School "to improve the condition and possibly find a solution."

During the event on Saturday, scientists took water samples and allowed the public to view the algae and other micro-organisms within the pond under a microscope.

Friends of Morningside Park, a nonprofit that helps oversee the Harlem green space, will work with both the Parks Department and Columbia University for the duration of the study to engage the local residents in the solution process.

At the beginning of June, a volunteer at Morningside Park started a petition urging the New York City Parks Department to get the pond's waterfall up and running again.

• Read More: Locals Push To Restore Harlem Park Waterfall: 'Let's Get It Back'

The waterfall and pond are located within the park near the West 113th Street and Manhattan Avenue entrance.

"We call on the NYC Parks Department to do ALL the necessary work to restore the waterfall and ensure that repeated pump failures do not occur," reads the petition that has been signed nearly 2,300 times.

The Parks Department told Patch on June 26 that it is investigating the cause of the waterfall failure and making a plan based on those finds.

The city department also mentioned that the construction was impacted by the pandemic and supply chain issues, and that the pond has had harmful algae bloom since 2016, which while the waterfall helps with the water's coloring, it doesn't remove the blooms.

The waterfall had restoration work done around 2018, but it quickly broke down again thereafter.

The lack of running water means the pond is more susceptible to the water filling with algae and subsequent murkiness.