Tibbett’s Tail is full of potential

To the editor,

Great thanks to The Riverdale Press for its editorial supporting the efforts of the fledgling group, Friends of Tibbett’s Tail, “Revitalize Tibbett’s Tail,” and for the news piece, “Activists try to turn around Tibbett’s Tail,” (Jan. 21).

Tibbett’s Tail, an official but much neglected city park between Bailey Avenue and the Major Deegan Expressway and stretching from West 234th to West 238th streets, is full of potential for a community struggling with social, health and environmental justice burdens. Though it has no path or bench and barely even an opening to squeeze through a forbidding chain-link fence, this park is no vacant lot. It is a woodland fragment teeming with life. Its biomass is sequestering carbon (critically needed in the era of climate change), and providing a home and food to migrating birds, countless small mammals, and many plant species, native and non-native.

A group of folks living in Community Board 8 — the Friends of Tibbett’s Tail — have come together since late last fall to begin a community dialogue about many intriguing possibilities for this green space that would meet the urgent needs of nature and local residents.  We’re actively reaching out to people throughout the northwest Bronx and will have a series of visioning meetings so that this stretch of public land can truly serve the community around it.

More than 25 people turned out for a Friends of Tibbett’s Tail clean-up of the park on December 28, 2015, under the auspices of the NYC Partnership for Parks program. There will be more clean-ups scheduled for spring and summer. All interested in joining the activities of Friends of Tibbett’s Tail can find details on our Facebook page, or by emailing friendsoftibbettstail@gmail.com. Help us build community as we revive a much-neglected park.

Alicia Grullon, Jennifer Scarlott and Friends of Tibbett’s Tail