The Bronx · Bronx County
Tibbetts Brook Park
NYC Parks
- Location
- Along Tibbetts Brook between Van Cortlandt Park and the Harlem River
- Size
- 15 acres
- Hours
- Dawn to dusk
- Type
- NYC Parks
Tibbetts Brook Park follows the course of Tibbetts Brook, a stream that flows from Yonkers through the northwest Bronx to Van Cortlandt Park. The brook is the subject of a major daylighting project that would restore it to the surface after decades flowing through underground sewers.
The Tibbetts Brook daylighting project is one of the most ambitious urban waterway restoration efforts in the United States. The plan would uncover the stream, which was buried in the 1910s, and create a greenway along its natural course.
Daylighting Tibbetts Brook would reduce combined sewer overflows into the Harlem River by diverting the brook's fresh water out of the sewer system, addressing one of the most significant water quality issues in the western Bronx.
Van Cortlandt Park, where Tibbetts Brook currently surfaces before entering the sewer system, is the third-largest park in New York City. The brook restoration would extend the park's ecological influence southward through the Bronx.
Tibbetts Brook Park represents the growing movement to restore buried urban waterways, recognizing that streams hidden beneath city streets can be brought back to life as both ecological and recreational assets.