Leaders from Columbia and New York City’s Department of Parks & Recreation gathered in Morningside Park on Friday to celebrate a major partnership to clear the park’s pond of toxic algal blooms, repair broken water pumps and restore its iconic waterfall. For the first time in seven years (other than brief testing periods), the waterfall sprang to life, and a stream of water sprayed over a wall of rocks before cascading into the pond below.
The event was part of a project, initiated last year, that aims to use Columbia’s expertise to restore Morningside Park’s waterfall and pond, and to make New York City’s parks more resilient in the face of climate change. The project brings together faculty from Columbia’s Climate School and Engineering School with a roster of partners from other Columbia schools, as well as members of the community. It aims to address issues affecting the pond in Morningside Park, and to provide a climate resilience blueprint for public parks in New York City and worldwide. The project focuses in particular on protecting parks from the effects of torrential downpours that have become more commonplace in recent years as a result of climate change.
Morningside Park’s pond was built in 1989 in a crater that was created in order to make room for a planned Columbia gymnasium, a project that was abandoned after it sparked major student protests. Though the pond has become a beloved hangout for many, its water pumps failed about seven years ago, and the pond has become a hotbed for algae blooms, which thrive in summer heat, and pose a risk to pets and children. In stagnant bodies of freshwater in New York City and beyond it, the problem of such algae is growing worse with climate change.
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