- The greenway project will run along 3.1 miles of former rail line through Yonkers.
- The $14M project needed another $7M in funding, and a recent $5.5M in federal money will help close the gap.
- It’ll be one of the first steps to addressing redlining in the area, U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer said Friday.
Old railways that once ran through Southwest Yonkers could be some of the first U.S. paths to address historic redlining and environmental racism under the federal infrastructure law.
On a cool, rainy Friday, Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer stood in a lot next to a playground. Decades earlier, it had been the Lowerre Station, part of the New York and Putnam Railroad, or Old Put, that once ran commuters from Yonkers to New York City.
Now, Schumer and other officials hope about $5.5 million from the $1.5 trillion federal infrastructure law can help transform the old lines into a 3.1-mile greenway. In doing so, they hope to provide park space and transit accessibility for an area where subway lines and the expansive Van Cortlandt Park are just a bit too far out of reach for most residents.
And with rising global temperatures, the greenway could help cool neighborhoods, often Black and Latino, that swelter more than other areas of the city in the summer.
“Yonkers needs it,” Schumer, a Brooklyn Democrat, said after addressing a small crowd of reporters, politicians, nonprofit leaders and a handful of local residents who said the area was once a dumping ground.
“Yonkers has…
