Bronx Swamp Cleanup Failure

The press has been giving the city government glowing reviews for cleaning up what they call ‘The Bronx Swamp’ (which of course is NOT a swamp). Since it seems over the last decade we’ve been the only exploring team with the boots and boldness to bother actually walking this abandoned rail line from end to end, we figured it might be nice to go back and see it cleaned up. Unfortunately though, what we found was that the city has done the minimal amount of work and has left the tunnel under St. Mary’s park completely fetid and flooded to boot. This tunnel was once dry enough to serve as a safe haven to migratory cave dwelling birds. Today though it’s the same old health hazard that the city promised it would eliminate. I guess they only cleaned the parts of this former railroad right of way that are visible to public and left a toxic soup directly under a park where children play.

Don’t get me wrong. I think the clean up work that has occurred is very nice and well done – but by no means is this job completed, and the people of the South Bronx should be disgusted that they’ve seemingly been hoodwinked by the administrators of our fine city.

More failure photos here.