City Commits $11.5M To Fix Riverside Park Drainage Systems

UPPER WEST SIDE, NY — Riverside Park is known around New York City for its many playgrounds and sports fields, green sloping hills and scenic greenway. It's also known among regular parkgoers for its many streams, puddles and marshes, which won't show up on any park map. Instead, the bodies of water materialize after every rainfall, unable to flow out of the green space due to Riverside Park's 1930s-era drainage systems.

A new city project will allocate $11.5 million to study and fix Riverside Park's outdated drainage systems to do away with its makeshift water features, officials announced Thursday. Mayor Bill de Blasio is committing the funds to the project, which was identified as a major need in a 2016 Parks Department master plan for the west side park.

Starting this winter, the Parks Department will launch a Request for Proposals to partner with an engineering firm to conduct a full study on storm drain systems in the park's flood-prone areas between West 108th and 116th streets city officials said. Work to fix the systems will begin in 2022 after the study identifies solutions to the park's drainage problems.

"This investment in Riverside Park’s infrastructure will significantly improve the drainage systems and increase the park’s storm water capacity in sections that are prone to chronic flooding," Parks Department Commissioner Mitchell Silver said, thanking the mayor for allocating the funds.

Riverside Park's natural geography contributes to its flooding problems, according to the Parks Department master plan. A high volume of storm water infiltrates the park at the West 115th Street entrance because of its low elevation. Water from as far as West 119th Street and West 103rd Street flows down sloping streets and enters the park at West 115th Street, according to the 2016 Parks Department master plan. Much of this water bypasses storm drains and collects along park pathways, forming large ponds and marshes.

Park Advocates have been asking the city to fund drain fixes for years, according to a New York Times article published in July. Many advocates believe that excess flooding in the park poses a danger to the Amtrak tunnels that run underneath the green space, according to the report.

"Riverside Park’s infrastructure has deteriorated significantly over decades, and this new investment is critically important to lift up one of the city’s most important public spaces," Riverside Park Conservancy President Dan Garodnick said in a statement.

The $11.5 million project to study and fix Riverside Park's drainage system will be the first city investment in the park's drainage infrastructure since it was installed in the 1930s, city officials said.