On a rainy Monday morning, I met parks steward and community activist Nilka Martell just outside the 6 Parkchester station, a few stops from the train’s Bronx terminus. The spot is an infrastructural puzzle: the elevated station is stacked over a rare New York City traffic circle, stacked, in turn, over the six-lane Cross Bronx Expressway. And it’s a busy transfer point for the residents of Parkchester’s mix of brick towers, houses, and mid-height apartment buildings. Martell’s work to improve the Bronx environment has radiated out from this neighborhood, where she has lived her whole life. What started as beautifying her block “out of boredom,” grew into a community vision to transform a greater part of the borough. Through the organization she founded and directs, Loving the Bronx, Martell stewards and programs neighboring Virginia Park. As chair of the board of the Bronx River Alliance, she is deeply involved in the restoration of the Bronx River and surrounding green spaces. Martell has already made her mark in the history of the Bronx. But she is just getting started on her most ambitious campaign: to cap the Cross Bronx Expressway.
In 2016, Martell set her sights on a gaping cutaway at the center of her neighborhood park, under which endless trucks and cars rumble and release harmful particulate matter. Building a platform over this exposed wedge of expressway would yield new land for community gathering space and make it easier to walk across the neighborhood. Decking over the approximately two-and-a-half miles of the Cross Bronx that run below grade would serve larger ends of public health, open space access, and environmental justice. The #CaptheCrossBronx campaign has begun to bear fruit, with the first steps in what should be a very large project to remediate and mitigate the harms of the eight-mile-long expressway: press conferences with New York’s mayor and senior senator, a $2 million study. The multi-generational project to improve quality of life for Bronx residents requires vigilance of government agencies, cultivating new allies and elected officials, and a steadfast commitment to community. Undaunted by precipitation — or anything else — Martell takes us on a walking tour along her path from “crazy” ideas to concrete change. – MM
“This is what we’re breathing in. It’s not just the fumes.”
I was born and raised in this area. Virginia Park was the park that we came to most frequently. I raised my kids in this area. I would pick them up after school, we’d stop here for a half hour. You’re thinking, as a parent, “They’re out there, they’re running, they’re taking deep breaths, it’s good for them.” And it’s not, and a lot of that awareness still needs to happen, particularly here in the Bronx.
Folks come here for a better opportunity, you want your kids to excel. But you’re not really being civically engaged — the language barriers, the cultural barriers — you’re not really making the connection as to why your children are developing all these respiratory issues. #CaptheCrossBronx has been a challenging campaign, but also a great opportunity to work with different groups of people and show them that in this country, we have a voice, and we can organize and leverage government to see the things that we want.
When I was growing up, this was a fenced-off green space. It had something like 80 benches. It would attract the wrong crowd. There’s a bunch of buses in this corridor, people would just use the park to cut through. Loving the Bronx started stewarding the park in 2012. We engaged regular people: “Does this feel like a park to you? If you had the opportunity to change this park, what would it look like?”
In 2015, the New York City Parks Department started a pilot program called Parks Without Borders, where you, as a regular New Yorker, could nominate a park. We went door-knocking, we would come to the park and talk to folks. We were able to work with Community Board 9, who hired someone to assess the pedestrian traffic and how people were using the park.
Virginia Park was selected for the program. We started telling people, “You guys did this, this was us!” People don’t realize how long these projects take. They would come out and say, “We thought you said the park was going to be renovated, and we don’t see any changes.” The whole process can take three to five years, from the time the park gets selected to the design phase, picking a contractor, and then the actual groundbreaking and construction.
The traffic is slow. You have these trucks. This is what we’re breathing in. It’s not just the fumes. Even if these were electric vehicles, you’d still have the fine particles from the wear and tear of the tires and brakes.
When we talked to the Department of Health and other agencies, they tried to downplay it, like, “We have monitors and we’re collecting data.” The data’s not really accurate when you have one monitor in an eight-mile corridor. Two of the organizations we partner with — Youth Ministries for Peace and Justice and South Bronx Unite — got state grants to monitor the air quality. They’re going to get youth involved and walk different portions of the Bronx to collect this data.
It’s like, “Okay, Department of Health, you can say everything you want, but why are these kids getting so sick?” When you go further west to where you have the Cross Bronx, the Bruckner, and the Major Deegan — the “Toxic Triangle” — you have all this pollution.
Years ago, I brought my cat to the animal clinic and asked, “Why is she hacking like this?” And the vet said, she’s asthmatic. And I was like, “So it’s not just kids!” Sometimes you have to know your audience. To parents, chances are your kid’s up for some kind of respiratory issue. But there are a lot of people that are not parents. “You have pets? Well, guess what, be on the lookout for that, too.” You have to engage folks and meet them where they’re at.
Virginia Park being renovated challenged folks to see a vision of the Cross Bronx being capped and the park being extended. We were telling people, “There’s something really exciting going on where the government is really paying attention to infrastructure.” When we kicked off the #CaptheCrossBronx campaign in 2016, Governor Cuomo had committed almost two billion dollars for changes to the Sheridan Expressway. Through the Southern Bronx River Watershed Alliance, which was working for the removal of the Sheridan, we learned the concept of capping and decking over a highway. We’re at this exciting point with Virginia Park where there’s reconstruction that’s going to occur. We’re wondering: How can we advocate for this portion of the Cross-Bronx Expressway to be capped?
The neighborhood doesn’t have any central place. We have a farmers’ market, but we don’t have any real space to get the community together. There’s a lot that can be done with this small portion of land, like building an amphitheater for performances and maybe an artisan market. It should be community-led.
“We’re gonna get this done”
The capping proposal wasn’t well received at first. People thought we were crazy. Then we got a new Assemblymember whose office is right down the block, Karines Reyes. She was the first elected official to really give us support. She wasn’t a career politician. She was a registered nurse. She understood our proposal from the health side. When the Covid-19 pandemic hit, that provided a platform. We were like, “Look, if people got hit in the South Bronx, it’s because they were unhealthy to begin with because of all this polluting infrastructure around them.”
It’s hard when you have no funding — you can’t afford to hire an expert. We were like: “Look at the asthma rates and respiratory problems. Where’s that coming from? You can’t tell me that an eight-year-old is smoking two packs of cigarettes a day.” In 2018, we found that a group of doctors at Columbia University had a case study on the cost effectiveness of capping the Cross Bronx for the use of parks. We were like, “Holy shit! There are people actually thinking about this.” That was the report that we took to Assemblymember Reyes.
In 2021, we found a podcast called “Healthy Bronx.” It was a group of students at Albert Einstein College of Medicine asking: “How does infrastructure impact health, and how can we impact policy to change this?” We reached out to them about the Cap the Cross Bronx campaign and were like “It’s pretty much going nowhere, people just think we’re crazy, but we wanted to let you know about it.” It was probably the best connection we made. Alex Levine, one of the medical students, came out here and did a podcast. He was like, “Hey, do you guys want me to introduce you to Dr. Peter Muennig?” (He was one of the doctors that did the case study.)
We’re just regular folks. The years of people just dismissing us — how are we even going to introduce ourselves to these doctors and be like, “Hey, we’re not experts in any way, we got a $10.3 million reconstruction grant for a park that’s adjacent to the highway, but we can’t promise you anything?” It was intimidating, but Alex introduced us. In March of 2021, we were standing right there on White Plains Road — Alex, Dr. Muennig, and myself — and I was like, “You know what, guys? We’re gonna form this trifecta, and we’re gonna get this done.”
Another important thing that happened was that José E. Serrano stepped down as our congressional representative, and Ritchie Torres won that seat. Ritchie grew up near I-95 and Throgs Neck, suffered from asthma, and we had a good relationship with him. We thought maybe we could convince Ritchie this is important. We called the office in early April 2021, and they called us back right away: “We’re so happy that you’re advocating this, and we want to know if you’re available to do a press conference on Earth Day.” Ritchie vowed to really work towards this, and in six short months, he got the funding. He came back with Senator Schumer and we did another press conference.
We’re really good at organizing and working with elected officials. We don’t have money or a website — it’s probably difficult to figure out who we are — but we get these things done.
When the $2 million Reimagine the Cross Bronx study was announced, we were really excited. But when the Mayor’s Office did a press conference, we realized our narrative was really important, because there was no discussion of a cap. In the meetings that we went to, it was more like, “Maybe we need to reconfigure this particular intersection.”
Last year and this year, we invited City Planning to table at some of our community events. They have a 3D model that AECOM helped create: it gives people a really good visual of the highway and stirs ideas as to what can happen in these places. It’s great having those folks at the table because they really engage with the people and take the time to explain the project. It feels like such a huge win that Loving the Bronx was just looking at capping these below-grade portions, but now the City and State are looking at the entirety of the Cross Bronx corridor, from the Harlem River to Westchester Creek. We’re excited that government is actually paying attention to this. But the other side of it is: Don’t forget the portions that we’ve been advocating to be capped.
“I’m not going anywhere. This is my life project. I’ll be 65, and they’ll finally be breaking ground on one portion or another of the Cross Bronx.”
As New Yorkers, we lead. We lead in so many things: design, architecture, even the creation of the Cross Bronx itself. We have this unique opportunity here to create something that we can really brag about as New Yorkers and Bronxites, and hopefully replicate it in other places.
I don’t anticipate that any of this work is going to be done within the next couple of years. Any of these huge initiatives are going to take decades of work. We often say that Cap the Cross Bronx is not just a campaign — it’s a movement. It has to be intergenerational. There are some folks that remember when the Cross Bronx was still being built, and then you have people like me, born and raised when it was already here. The kids in high school now are maybe not thinking that you can study to be an architect, an engineer, an urban planner. We want those kids to be part of the movement too, because they’re the ones that might be able to study and get these jobs. It’ll make them feel good to be like, “When I was a teenager, I was advocating for this, and here I am now, the engineer that’s overseeing this project.”
With a huge project like this, you need to have people that are dedicated in the long haul. I’m not going anywhere. This is my life project. I’ll be 65, and they’ll finally be breaking ground on one portion or another of the Cross Bronx.
I draw strength from the efforts of the Southern Bronx River Watershed Alliance. Taking down part of the Sheridan Expressway took over 20 years to accomplish. Growing up here and passing the river, it was an open sewer. Wildlife has returned, dolphins visited the Bronx River last year, we have egrets, we have herons, turtles, eels, alewife — this is because of the work of an amazing woman 50 years ago, Ruth Anderberg. We’re reaping the benefits of that now.
Growing up, my mom used to say, “You’re so loud all the time.” Now I’m like: “It’s just because of where we live! I have to talk loud to be heard, Mom.”
There’s a lot of noise in this corridor. If we can mitigate some of the noise and air pollution and create open spaces, I think it’s a big win.
A student from the School of Visual Arts came out with a meter. She was calculating noise levels during one of our tours. She was saying that it’s higher than what you’re supposed to be exposed to. Doctors were saying that there are correlations between noise and mental health issues like anxiety. If you’re coming home to this every day, and you’re waking up and this every day, that isn’t good.
I literally know everybody because I’ve been here for so long. Our work started in 2011. Million Trees NYC came and planted all these trees in 2010. We never had trees on this block, but I came home one day, and I was like: “There’s trees on our block! How freaking cool is this?” In December 2010, I had gotten laid off from work, and it was the first time since I was 16 that I hadn’t worked. I was a single mom at the time. I was going crazy: “I can’t stay home anymore.”
The trees were so pretty, but nobody was really taking care of them. My kids and I started cleaning up the block. We went to a Million Trees workshop, and they were like: “You guys can adopt the trees.” And we were like: “This is so cool!” By the end of August, we had 25 kids coming out on a weekly basis to water the trees and clean up.
We applied for a small grant through Citizens Committee of New York City, and we got it, and then they said: “Every year we pick one grant to highlight, and we really love your idea and what you’ve been doing, so we’ve selected you.”
That came with a whole bunch of other city services. DOT came out and put the street signs up. Sanitation cleaned out the catch basin, so now when it rains, the water goes down. That used to be an old movie theater, and the graffiti program through the city came and they cleaned the whole wall. The Deputy Commissioner came out one day. For that event, we got 130 volunteers to come out. It was insane.
All you hear is negative things, like kids in the street are hanging out. We started doing this, and kids gravitated. They knew every Thursday to come to the block because we’d be out here watering trees. At the time, we were GIVE: Getting Involved, Virginia Avenue Efforts. It was just a bunch of neighbors. I did this just because I was bored, and I got tired of seeing my block like this. It was just me and my kids, and then my neighbor, her kids, and then the kids from the building next door, and then my kids’ friends. It just grew. Some of these kids have gone to college. They come speak at the park at our events.
“I don’t represent an agency, I don’t represent the government, I represent just the average person that’s trying to create change.”
A lot of the bad taste that was left in my mouth from the Sheridan project really prepared me for doing this work with the Cross Bronx, because when agencies push back, I have to be clever and strategic; not to get people in trouble, but to let them know that it’s important to us. I remember going to the early meetings for removing the Sheridan Expressway, and the State had three options. None of these options fully reflected what the community wanted. I hate to say this, but these are people’s jobs, they don’t live in the areas, and they’re not impacted. At the end of the day, they’ll go ahead with the most feasible route, not really thinking that the investment, no matter the cost, can have a positive, lasting impact. So, knowing how to compromise, but also how to advocate for yourself with the city agencies. We shouldn’t settle for crumbs.
Coalition building with other organizations and different stakeholders was also something we learned through the Southern Bronx River Watershed Alliance: looking at it not just from the environmental perspective. There’s a group of people that are like, “Just shut down I-95.” You can’t do that. It is a major artery from Florida to Canada. You can’t have one missing link in the Bronx. And if you do, what does that mean? All the traffic is going to go on the Bruckner? You’re excluding it from this area, but you’re pushing it to another area, and that’s unfair.
Last year, Governor Hochul invited me to speak at her press conference. I started with a smile, but I said: “We’re here celebrating community work that took 30 years, and the end project didn’t really reflect what the community wanted.” It wasn’t that the community wasn’t happy that these changes came, but the essence of what we wanted wasn’t accomplished. I want to stay true to community because that’s really important. I don’t represent an agency, I don’t represent the government, I represent just the average person that’s trying to create change. I did say that this infrastructure project was great, and it was great that the state government is looking at these things, and I look forward to working with her on capping the Cross Bronx. People know: They come here to the Bronx, we’re not quiet. We’re going to be in your face. It’s just who we are.
“This is why people have such a distrust with city and state agencies, because they create things and then walk away from them.”
Growing up, this was a fenced-off green space. I thought it was a lawn at the entrance of the train station. One day, I noticed that there was a sign that said Hugh J. Grant Circle, and I was like, “Why is there a Parks leaf on this sign? Oh, my God, this is a park!” We got permission from the Parks Department to host events inside the park, and people freaked out because they saw us inside the fenced-off space. They were like, “How did you get access to that?”
The Cross Bronx is running underneath here. I know a lot of people are like, “Where are those fumes going to go?” There are going to be areas that are concentrated with more pollution, the fumes don’t cease to exist just because you’re capping it. You have to really look at where these vents are going to be placed, and then think about different forms of green infrastructure. Can trees or plants mitigate where the concentration of the fumes are going?
In the summertime, we see folks eating lunch here, particularly the MTA employees. There’s nowhere for them to sit, so they come out here. The original park was constructed in 1956. The community selected the current design. The Parks Department worked with the contractors to keep both of the birdbaths. In the springtime, you’ll see a bunch of little birds in there. It’s just so sweet to just have that preserved.
If you are heading east, this is the only crossing on this whole stretch of the Cross Bronx, from Westchester Avenue all the way down to Castle Hill. When we get to the other side, it literally is playing Frogger with the one light. Even when it turns red, the cars just run it, and sometimes it’s trucks. There are schools on this side, and people walk with their strollers and shopping carts. This is dangerous.
New York State DOT is responsible for the bridges. Sometimes there are just piles of garbage here, human feces, urine. Think about the elderly person or the mom that’s pushing the stroller. This is what you have to cross every single day. We used to have a neighbor who owned a house here — he died a couple of years ago in a car accident — he would clean this all up. But, at the end of the day, it’s not our job. This is why people have such a distrust with city and state agencies, because they create things and then walk away from them.
We have a huge Amazon last-mile distribution center not too far from here, right by Westchester Creek. I’m thinking when they were building that, nobody was like, “That can’t be built!” And then of course, the state came in and said, “Oh, now we need to rehabilitate the Union Port Bridge.” People were so happy. I’m like, “They’re not doing it for you. They’re doing it because Amazon’s coming in.”
“It’s just an asphalt-top triangle, we can do something better here.”
There are about 60 parks within half a mile of the highway. This is the third park that we program and steward. It’s so noisy, and it recently got some funding for some renovations because we were like, “Hey, it’s just an asphalt-top triangle, we can do something better here.”
When I was growing up, it was predominantly Italian and Irish. Peter, who owned the blue house, would share these wonderful stories of how it was growing up in this neighborhood. Right now, there’s a big Mexican population around here. It’s intergenerational: you see the grandmothers tending to the toddlers and the infants, the parents play with the teenage kids and the younger kids, and sometimes they all play volleyball. We’re excited to see what’s going to happen here. It’s great that these changes are coming and that they’re making these investments, but we’ve also got to worry about the highway.
When we host events in Virginia Park, it gives us the opportunity to talk to folks about changes that could potentially come to this area. It really is grassroots, building relationships. We show up everywhere. We go to schools, we go to meetings, big events. When our partners have meetings, we show up to their meetings. We’re very mindful that other organizations are working on other projects, so we definitely support and advocate for the work that they’re doing, but then it also provides us an opportunity to talk to people and be like, “Hey, do you know about like this other project to cap the Cross Bronx?”
One of the hardest things about organizing is that you meet people who are like, “I can’t pay my rent, I can’t find a job, my lights are gonna be cut off, I’m having challenges with my kid in school.” It’s having to meet all these needs even before you can ask someone, “Hey, we have this really ambitious project, are you interested in learning about it?” I spend a lot of time just helping people navigate their own challenges to really gain that trust so that later on, I can say, “We’re having this meeting, can you come out and support?” That’s what organizing is about; it’s not a transactional relationship.
It’s really time-consuming. People think we just show up at meetings, or we do a presentation. We do a lot of walking tours to school groups and graduate students. I think people really don’t understand this is my day-to-day. City Planning asks me: “How do you do this?” And I’m like: “Before work, after work, on the weekends, with the baby, without the baby, with my kids.”
This is where I live. This is where I grew up. My parents retired and moved back to Puerto Rico. My sister bought a house two hours away, my younger sister moved to Texas. My entire family is like, “Why are you still there?” And I’m like, “This is home. I love this place. I’m not leaving here.”
“Robert Moses didn’t like ‘No,’ and neither does Nilka.”
There are other challenges. Green gentrification is always a big deal. We saw it with the Sheridan particularly. The tower buildings being built right now on the bank of the river are not affordable to some of the folks that are living there. We’re mindful that with a project of this magnitude, property values can soar.
When you come to the East Bronx, it’s predominantly single- to three-family homes along the corridor. Once you’re in the West Bronx, it’s more residential buildings. Even a lot of the houses are rental units. If property values go up, it’s great for the person that made that 30-year investment to buy the home, but we’re not blind to the fact that that person is going to say, “The value went up, let’s jack up rents.” We’re trying to do this in a way where it’s equitable to the people that have suffered and been impacted the most.
How to achieve that? I’m not gonna lie: I don’t know. You have to start the conversation with elected officials and figure out what can be done to make this equitable. When Robert Moses created this, there was a lot of eminent domain and people displaced, particularly in the West Farms area. We don’t want to recreate that in carrying out this project, where there’s going to be lower health impacts, but you can’t afford to live here.
I’m losing hope, in my older age, that we’re going to find a mayor who realizes the importance of parks. Conservancies and alliances are great when it comes to being a fundraising arm of the park. But the reality is that no friends group is ever going to be the Central Park Conservancy or Prospect Park Alliance. You’re talking about parks that are situated near millionaires and billionaires.
There is an inequity in parkland. They call the Bronx the greenest borough, but when you look at where the parks are situated, we have the largest city park all the way in the East Bronx, we have the third largest all the way in the West Bronx. We have Bronx Park, right smack in the middle where the Bronx River Greenway passes, but that’s really the Zoo and Botanical Garden.
In the West Bronx, I see an opportunity of creating a linear park over and along the Cross Bronx. I draw on Sara Roosevelt Park in the Lower East Side: every parcel has a different function. You have handball courts, and then you have play equipment, and then you have fitness equipment. I would love to see all of the Cross Bronx from Westchester Avenue to Castle Hill Avenue as open green space. If you’re living in this area and we’re doing movie night in Virginia Park, you can get on this greenway and just walk straight there.
I would love to adopt the stretch from Westchester Avenue to Castle Hill. People would really want to maintain these spaces. But while I love volunteers and I’m a dedicated volunteer to a lot of groups, it’s not sustainable. You need full-time jobs with living wages that people can really take pride in. It really takes that type of investment to make these green spaces thrive. In the Bronx, we only have one state park: Roberto Clemente. I think there’s a real opportunity here for it to be a state park.
It’s ambitious. The agencies are really adamant that it can’t be done. I’m like, “Look at the side that says, ‘Yes, let’s figure this out.’” We’re sending people to Mars; you can’t tell me that someone can’t figure out what can be done with the Cross Bronx.
I feel like a lot of Robert Moses’ projects were just not well thought out. But I find strength in the fact that Moses was not kind to “No.” I always take that approach. When people are like, “No,” I’m like, “You know, what? Moses didn’t like ‘No,’ and neither does Nilka.”
