Manhattan Waterfront Greenway North Harlem
The North Harlem segment of the Manhattan Waterfront Greenway would close a critical gap in Manhattan’s greenway network and restore waterfront access for a community that is separated from the water by the Harlem River Drive.
Restoring Waterfront Access for North Harlem
The project is a key piece of the City’s 2018 “Manhattan Waterfront Greenway: A Vision for Closing the Loop” Plan to create a continuous 32.5-mile waterfront greenway around the island of Manhattan. Since publication of that plan, NYCEDC, NYC DOT, and NYC Parks have been working together to close this 1.2-mile gap that extends along the East River from 145th to roughly 163rd Streets.
Conceptual diagram showing route alternatives for closing the North Harlem gap in the greenway network.
Future Opportunities With Water Resources Development Act
A key challenge of closing this gap is that there is little to no waterfront land available to build on. Harlem River Drive extends along the waterfront for most of the gap and even goes out over the river in some places. Therefore, building a waterfront greenway in North Harlem requires building a platform over a portion of the river.
In New York City, much of the Hudson and East rivers are Federal Navigation Channels that the US Army Corps of Engineers maintains. No entity is allowed to build any structure in a Federal Navigation Channel without specific permissions. To build a waterfront greenway here requires first “deauthorizing” a portion of the Federal Channel through the federal Water Resources Development Act (WRDA).
NYCEDC worked with New York City’s congressional delegation to submit a request to modify the Federal Channel between 145th and 163rd Streets in December 2025 through the 2026 WRDA bill. The proposed deauthorization area is based on a thorough Navigational Safety Risk Assessment and extensive stakeholder outreach.
This request would deauthorize an 80-foot-wide strip just one mile long on the Manhattan side of the Harlem River. This would allow the City to advance this project to further analyze the opportunity for an over-water structure and come one step closer to realizing a vision years in the making. If the greenway extension were to advance over water, it would likely be a structure approximately 40 feet wide—similar to the East Midtown Greenway that NYCEDC completed in 2023.
This WRDA application is a preliminary step towards future feasibility analysis and eventual design for this project. The Navigational Risk Assessment and the City’s WRDA application are posted below.
