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We’re one week out from the unofficial first day of summer season, which suggests New Yorkers will be part of their fellow Individuals having fun with Memorial Day weekend in backyards, parks, swimming pools, and seashores. The latter are ample in New York, which boasts 520 miles of shoreline; if all of these serene marshy inlets, Atlantic shores, and fetid industrial canals have been pieced collectively, they’d be about equal in size to the drive between Manhattan and Raleigh, North Carolina.
Most of us roughly know the place the closest physique of water is, but it surely’s not all the time apparent which areas are open to the general public and what actions are permitted therein. Happily, the New York Metropolis Division of Metropolis Planning (DCP) is right here to assist with a brand new report and up to date waterfront map.
As its scorching title suggests, Assessing New Yorkers’ Entry to NYC’s Waterfront profiles the town’s accessible water-adjacent areas, with info on whether or not it’s okay to fish, kayak, picnic, hike, or sunbathe topless. (For the document, that final one is authorized in any respect New York Metropolis public seashores, even when prudish cops within the Rockaways say in any other case.) The brand new report enhances the company’s Complete Waterfront Plan, launched final yr, that outlines challenges and alternatives for the shoreline.
The report’s Could 20 launch coincides with an replace to DCP’s Waterfront Entry Map. First launched in 2018, the map presents New Yorkers a digital atlas of seashore and riverfront entry within the 5 boroughs. Along with telling you what you are able to do at every website, the map additionally exhibits how one can get there by foot, bike, or transit.
In a municipality that’s principally three islands and…the Bronx, a lot of the metropolis’s 8.5 million residents reside fairly near the water: DCP’s city planners discovered that 80 p.c the inhabitants lives inside a 30-minute prepare or bus trip from the waterfront. Included in that determine are the three million New Yorkers who reside a half-mile or much less from a physique of water, with two of these 3 million residing a half-mile from a waterfront park or inexperienced house.
However proximity doesn’t assure equal or equitable entry, the town famous. Advocacy organizations just like the Waterfront Alliance echoed that time and known as for extra to be carried out to broaden entry:
“Whereas we rejoice the numerous new waterfront entry factors created lately, some communities should not have ample entry as a result of former industrial websites on the water, zoning, and a historical past of disinvestment in underserved communities. Furthermore, alternatives to bodily interact with the water by leisure boating and even swimming are very restricted throughout New York Metropolis,” mentioned Karen Imas, vice chairman of packages for Waterfront Alliance, in a press launch. “We commend Metropolis Planning for exploring pathways to open new waterfronts and join communities to native waterfronts. There are nonetheless miles of shoreline fully unused and reduce off from communities and we stay up for working with the Metropolis of New York to carry all the advantages of open house, inexperienced infrastructure, and leisure alternatives to these communities that want them probably the most.”
For these seeking to plan a visit at house or on the go, the Waterfront Entry Map is accessible on desktop and cell units.
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