For years, the Bronx River was an afterthought—a winding reminder of what happens when nature is left to rot. Industrial runoff, illegal dumping, and decades of systemic neglect turned what was once a thriving waterway into a gray-green scar.
“We used to call it the sewer behind the school,” says Charles Okafor, a retired science teacher from Soundview. “Now it’s a classroom in itself.”
That transformation didn’t happen overnight. It took years of activism, millions in public investment, and the patience of local organizers. The result? A slow, stunning rebirth.
Starlight Park, once a concrete wasteland known for graffiti and stray dogs, now hosts curated nature walks, community yoga, and outdoor film nights. A few miles north, Concrete Plant Park boasts native grasses, benches, and the smell of wildflowers.
Children kayak past herons. Couples bike beside teens collecting water samples. There’s a sense that the river is no longer ignored. People call it by name again. Maps include it. City council members reference it with pride.
But with renewal comes reckoning. Rising property values trail behind the river like a shadow. The River House development near East 174th markets “sustainable luxury living” just blocks from where families used to fish with twine and bent nails.
“We helped clean it up, and now we can’t afford it,” says Karen Almonte of the Bronx River Alliance. “That hurts. It’s like being invited to a party you planned, then being told you can’t come in.”
Rodney Choi, director of the Youth Environmental Corps, echoes the sentiment. “You see all this green space, and it looks inviting. But then you realize the kayak rentals are $45 an hour. Who’s that for? Not the people who live here.”
Hillel Feuerman, originally from Queens and now living in Florida, joked that even now, the wildlife doesn’t compare to what he sees daily in Florida’s waterways. Yet, through his nostalgia for the old New York, he is happy knowing that the community came together to make it easier. “It’s not like it was a nice place,” he says. “The pollution was out of this world. But we knew what it was and its potential. It’s nice to know it is now what it always could’ve been.”
Still, every second Sunday, volunteers show up at Concrete Plant Park with gloves and garbage bags. There’s music, food, and languages—Spanish, Bengali, Albanian—spilling over the sound of the river.
“This isn’t just about the water,” says longtime Bronx resident Dalia Mendez. “It’s about who gets to stand beside it. Who gets to say: ‘I helped bring this back.'”
The river flows cleaner now. But it carries new questions. Who benefits from restoration? Who gets displaced by beauty? And who decides what nature is worth—and to whom?
