Riverside Park Fund is the non-profit support organization for Riverside Park. Community groups with specific interests have found a common voice in the Fund; a wide range of needs of the diverse community are met with strong support. The relationship between the Fund and NYC Department of Parks & Recreation is one of mutual support and respect with common goals.
In the 1980s, conditions in Riverside Park had deteriorated and it had become a haven for vandalism, drug dealing and homelessness. Playgrounds were shabby; recreation areas were abandoned; benches were deteriorating; stairs and pathways were crumbling.
In 1986, a small group of community activists on Manhattan’s Upper West Side banded together to address these issues. They saw an important community resource for relaxation and recreation: 316 acres hugging the Hudson River for four miles from 72nd to 158th Street. They recognized the diverse population served by the Park; they appreciated its historic character and valued its inherent beauty.
Riverside Park was suffering from a lack of adequate funding from New York City; funding which was necessary to rehabilitate its infrastructure and to properly maintain its facilities and horticultural treasures. With grants from a couple of foundation sources, and donations from several Upper West Side co-ops, that small group of concerned citizens became the first board of directors of Riverside Park Fund, and were able to use the funds raised to hire an executive director for the fledgling organization.
Within its first year, the Fund had refurbished one of the Park’s twelve playgrounds, sponsored the Riverside Park Arts Festival at the 79th Street Rotunda, and started a volunteer program to help clean up the Park. Within its first eighteen months, the Fund had raised $250,000.
Today, Riverside Park is larger than it was in 1986; 330 acres of parkland from 62nd to 158th Street, and eventually, once Riverside Park South is completed, from 59th to 158th Street. So too has Riverside Park Fund grown, with an annual budget of over $2 million today. Since its inception, the Fund has raised funds to renovate the playgrounds and the dog runs in the Park, restored the bird sanctuary, completed the Ralph Ellison Memorial at 150th Street, and helped raise public and private funds to restore the 103rd and 107th Street Ballfields, among many other projects.
Having grown out of “clean-up” and “green-up” efforts undertaken by local residents, the Fund’s Grassroots Volunteer Program has grown considerably over the years and is now one of the largest in the City. With that in mind, the Fund took a small, dilapidated parkhouse and created the Peter Jay Sharp Volunteer House, a two-story limestone building with a meeting room on the top floor, and space for tool storage and plant propagation on the lower floors. Our Grassroots volunteers contributed over 38,500 hours of their time to help improve the Park in 2006.