Hudson River Waterfront Greenway

The path beneath your feet exists today only because of a small fish. For decades, plans for this stretch of the Hudson River coastline involved a massive project called Westway, which would have replaced the aging highway with a multi-lane underground freeway and high-rise developments. A protracted legal battle stalled these plans in the mid-1980s when the court ruled that the environmental impact statement failed to account for how the construction would disrupt the habitat of juvenile striped bass. Because the project could not guarantee the safety of these fish, the highway plan was defeated, paving the way for the greenway and park system you see today.