The lush green expanse of grass and open land in Upper Manhattan’s Inwood Hill Park, with the Hudson River flowing alongside, looks otherworldly.
“There’s nothing like it left in the city,” said Nathan Currier, 63, an Inwood resident and frequent visitor. However, Currier and other Inwood residents contend that the park’s natural beauty is being destroyed by the construction of an artificial-turf soccer field.
Currier, a self-employed composer with an interest in climate advocacy, started a petition drive in August to oppose the project, citing health and environmental concerns. The petition charges that the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation is using silica sand infill, which can turn into silica dust and pose severe health risks.
Left, Inwood Hill Park in August, before construction began. (Courtesy: Nathan Currier) Right, the field on Sept. 30. (Credit: Hazel Gandhi)
“Safety is always our top priority, and we follow all guidelines to ensure that we are using materials that are tested and approved by experts,” the parks department said in an emailed response. It added that synthetic turf fields are “highly durable, usable year-round and able to accommodate a variety of sports and activities.”
The department confirmed that the artificial-turf soccer field being constructed at the park is “tufted nylon and has coated silica sand.”
Currier has gathered more than 3,200 signatures for the petition, which describes the project as an “atrocious misuse of public funds.”
Nathan Currier organized the petition. (Credit: Somaiyah Hafeez)
In an earlier response to a concerned Inwood resident, the department had said the field used “tufted nylon and does not have infill.”
Lindsey Pollard, a researcher at the Lowell Center for Sustainable Production at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, said that while the coated silica sand will pose “probably minimal” respiratory risks, it will become an “issue for the surrounding environment” given that it is coated with a polymer. When the coated silica sand moves into the environment, she explained, it contributes to “micro plastic pollution.”
First proposed by the parks department in January 2021, the construction will cost an estimated $8.7 million. In addition to leveling and replacing the old field, workers will add drainage fixtures, accessible seating and pathways, and better fencing.
The parks department said in its 2021 proposal that the playing surface lies on a flood plain, but the project would proceed anyway because the “community call for a soccer field was so strong.”
Manhattan’s Community Board 12, which represents the neighborhood, passed a resolution approving the project 14 days later. It states that the board sought public input about the plan earlier, in a “well-attended” meeting in November 2019.
Massimo Strino, 67, a Washington Heights resident and frequent park user who is involved in opposition to the synthetic turf, maintains that the public wasn’t adequately informed about the plan and didn’t have enough opportunities to contest it.
But the parks department said it considered community input, including from the Uptown Soccer Youth Organization that uses the field regularly.
David Sykes, the founder and executive director of the Uptown Soccer Youth Academy, which offers free soccer training for children, confirmed that he attended public meetings discussing the reconstruction. “Nobody attended any of the community meetings to raise issues at all,” he said. “It was only once they started building the field that these people came out and started making a fuss about it.”
Sykes added that “our kids in the neighborhood don’t have access to these sort of well-maintained fields.”
However, Josh Magee, another Inwood resident, filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the minutes from the meeting with CB12 through its website on Sept. 24. He hasn’t gotten a response yet.
At the CB12 Parks and Cultural Affairs meeting earlier this month, Magee said he requested the minutes once more and was “dismissively told by the committee chair that they were available on the CB12 website, which is false.
Strino has alleged a lack of transparency and also said the minutes of the November 19 meeting are unavailable.
In September, Strino and his wife were distributing fliers at the Inwood Greenmarket. So far, he said, he has persuaded hundreds of people at the Greenmarket, unaware of the reconstruction of the soccer field, to sign the petition. He also argued that the maintenance cost for an artificial turf field would be “astronomical.”
“They can do the work that they’re doing and create the drainage necessary and level the playing field but instead of artificial grass use natural grass,” Strino said. He has also created a website dedicated to the cause.
Synthetic fields have been long scrutinized over concerns about dangerous non-biodegradable “forever chemicals” that accumulate in the body and are known to cause serious health issues, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. In 2022, Boston’s mayor Michelle Wu ordered that no new artificial turf be installed in city parks.
“We’ve seen many examples of artificial turf fields that have been privately analyzed for PFAs and they found PFAs”, said Pollard.
The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai has warned against the carcinogenic materials in artificial turf made of crumb rubber and called for further studies of alternative materials like tuft nylon. It also pointed out, in an online publication, that artificial turf is more prone to heating up and causing injuries than natural grass.
Pollard said that artificial turf could reach about 150 degrees Fahrenheit on a hot day and can get “hotter than asphalt.”
She added, “Having green space, especially in a place like Manhattan, is really important because it can offer relief from the urban heat island effect and help relieve some of that heat stress.”
The new field under construction. (Credit: Hazel Gandhi)
Amid the controversy, the parks department is proceeding with construction and has dug up a portion of the field. For Currier, the goal now is to talk about the problems with artificial turf and stop future projects like this one.
The parks department expects to complete construction by July.
About the author(s)
Hazel Gandhi is a journalist and fact checker from India currently pursuing her MS in Data Journalism at Columbia Journalism School.
Somaiyah Hafeez is an award-winning journalist from Balochistan, Pakistan currently pursuing her Master’s in Data Journalism from Columbia Journalism School.