The Park Today
Today, the park contains three children's playgrounds, baseball and soccer fields and tennis and basketball courts. The Inwood Hill Nature Center at the north end of the park is both a location for educational programs and the local headquarters of the Urban Park Rangers.
The lack of green space in the eastern part of Inwood and the Bronx nearby creates an enormous demand for picnicking with barbecues and table/chair setups, activity that is either illegal or tightly controlled in most city parks but which Inwood Hill Park has managed by allowing such setups to take place on the manicured, maintained peninsula portion of the park. This has not been without controversy from those who oppose any such noise, smoke and litter-inducing activity, but it has been successful in keeping illegal picnics away from the other sections of the park.
Inwood Hill Park's ballfields are heavily used and indeed completely subsumed by local and other city Spanish-language leagues during the long baseball season. It is not uncommon to see hundreds if not thousands of uniformed players and spectators at the Dyckman Fields and Seaman Avenue ballpark compounds. This usage places extreme pressure on the park, which as a result has required more active management in recent years.
On September 15, 1995, the Inwood Hill Nature Center was dedicated and opened to the public. It is located near the park entrance on 218th Street and Indian Road. The center is located on Manhattan’s only salt-water marsh. It has also been designated as an interactive exhibit with ongoing monitoring of the natural area. It is also the focal point to watch the eagles which have been placed in the park to be freed when they are able to adjust to the environment.
Read more about this topic: Inwood Hill Park
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“Linnæus, setting out for Lapland, surveys his “comb” and “spare shirt,” “leathern breeches” and “gauze cap to keep off gnats,” with as much complacency as Bonaparte a park of artillery for the Russian campaign. The quiet bravery of the man is admirable.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
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