Inwood Schoolyard Gets $250K In Funding For Renovation

INWOOD, NY — A new grant will go toward transforming an Inwood schoolyard that three local schools share.

NewYork-Presbyterian and Trust for Public Land announced Monday a $250,000 grant from the hospital's Northern Manhattan Recovery Fund to help transform an empty asphalt lot into a "vibrant community schoolyard that will be accessible to both the school and wider community after hours and on the weekends."

The lot, located within the Inwood Community Campus at 650 Academy Street, serves as a schoolyard for three schools: the Harold Levy School (I.S. 52), the High School for Excellence and Innovation, and the Inwood Early College for Health and Information Technologies.

The new schoolyard will be designed by the students, the wider community, residents of the neighborhood, and representatives from relevant community groups.

The campus' yard was chosen for the redesign because it was identified as "high need" based on a tool that uses data such as income level, academic achievement, environmental justice factors and more to determine the greatest rank of need.

The Northern Manhattan Recovery Fund was founded in March 2020 to provide emergency funding for various district initiatives at the height of the COVID pandemic.

The schoolyard project will be spearheaded in collaboration with Representative Adriano Espaillat.

The construction is slated to begin this fall.