Redesigned Starlight Park in Bronx is ‘a win for nature and a win for people’
12 photos
The newest sections of Starlight Park connect the east side of the Bronx River to the ballfields and playgrounds on its western shore.
Looking across the Bronx River towards the southern entrance of Starlight Park. The green hillside here was previously a parking lot for impounded cars.
A wall of concrete blocks was removed from the river’s edge here, and replaced with a softer shoreline, including an intertidal wetlands.
An even larger intertidal wetlands (left) has been planted in this section of Starlight Park, which was previously home to an auto wrecking business.
A new pedestrian bridge connecting to the southern end of Starlight Park has been built next to an older Amtrak bridge, along their Northeast Corridor train line.
The community on the Bronx River’s east side was previously cut off from Starlight Park and the waterfront by the Amtrak train tracks. A new pedestrian bridge, seen in the distance, crosses above the tracks.
Several systems of stone weirs and rainwater detention ponds have been built throughout the new sections of Starlight Park, to capture and detain stormwater, before slowly releasing it into the Bronx River.
A stone weir and channel, designed to slowly release water down into a new rainwater garden. These pieces of green infrastructure are interwoven into the parks paths and public spaces.
The new park features a series of gently rising ramps, bringing visitors up the pedestrian bridge over the Amtrak train tracks. The pathways provide overlooks onto the new rain gardens and the Bronx River.
A third pedestrian bridge, crossing over the Bronx River to a larger section of Starlight Park that was completed in 2013.
The new sections of Starlight Park also include a narrow trail along the east side of the Bronx River, next to the Amtrak train tracks.
This trail travels through forests and wetlands, creating a new half-mile looping pathway around the river. Previously, this side of the river was undeveloped and not open to the public.