Activities Today
In recent years, as the economy of the northern Manhattan has lifted, the status of park has improved and is no longer a haven for petty crime and other unsavory activities. The New York Restoration Project (chaired by Bette Midler) has been working since 1999 to restore the park.
Around the start of the 21st century, the waterfront Speedway was rehabilitated and reopened as the Harlem River portion of the Manhattan Waterfront Greenway.
According to city plans, by 2013 the High Bridge will be rehabilitated and reopened for pedestrians and bicyclists. The 1200–foot–long, 116-foot-tall High Bridge walkway was closed to regular public use around 1970.
May 19, 2007 saw the opening of New York City's first legal mountain bike trails and dirt jumps in Highbridge Park. New York City Mountain Bike Association in association with New York City Parks and the International Mountain Bicycling Association (IMBA) has been working together on the trails and the opening weekend featured a festival and cross country mountain bike.
As of late 2011, despite the efforts of both the New York Restoration Project and the City Parks Dept., the infrastructure of the park has decayed significantly and has not yet been fully restored.
Read more about this topic: Highbridge Park
Famous quotes containing the words activities and/or today:
“Both gossip and joking are intrinsically valuable activities. Both are essentially social activities that strengthen interpersonal bonds—we do not tell jokes and gossip to ourselves. As popular activities that evade social restrictions, they often refer to topics that are inaccessible to serious public discussion. Gossip and joking often appear together: when we gossip we usually tell jokes and when we are joking we often gossip as well.”
—Aaron Ben-Ze’Ev, Israeli philosopher. “The Vindication of Gossip,” Good Gossip, University Press of Kansas (1994)
“Even today . . . experts, usually male, tell women how to be mothers and warn them that they should not have children if they have any intention of leaving their side in their early years. . . . Children don’t need parents’ full-time attendance or attention at any stage of their development. Many people will help take care of their needs, depending on who their parents are and how they chose to fulfill their roles.”
—Stella Chess (20th century)