By Carla Zanoni
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
INWOOD — Inwood residents know their neighborhood just wouldn’t be the same without Inwood Hill Park, the second largest park in Manhattan.
Yet when the MTA updated its transit map, it failed to name the 196 acres of green space on the northernmost tip of Manhattan.
“It’s like Central Park for this neighborhood," said Ernesto Pasqual Simone, 47, who has played softball at the park for more than a decade. "They should put it on the map."
The MTA rolled out its newest version of the New York City transit map in June. There are two versions.
The first, on display in subway cars, scarcely distinguishes between parkland and streets, with a slight gradation of color marking parks throughout the city.
But a print version available at station agent booths shows parkland in olive green with parks including Central Park, Highbridge Park and Riverside Park clearly marked, but Northern Manhattan’s Fort Tryon and Inwood Hill parks unnamed.
“It’s not a mistake,” argued Deb Snyder, 54, who has lived in Inwood for 27 years. “This is an underserved, underrepresented part of the city.”
But MTA spokesman Aaron Donovan said the omission does not reflect a change in the MTA’s park naming practice. The park was not identified in the previous map version created in 1998 as well, but Donovan said the MTA is willing to change that moving forward.
“We’ll name it in the next map,” he said, which the MTA reprints several times per year.
For some Inwood Hill Park visitors, the omission is just fine with them.
Edward Martin, 60, was born and raised in Inwood, but now lives in Pauling, N.Y. He left the area when real estate prices were climbing too high for his family to afford and now fishes in the park and visits to enjoy his old haunts, the only natural forest in Manhattan.
“I don’t know, how many more people do you want to come here?” he asked. “Do you want it with big banners: ‘Welcome to Inwood Hill Park? Personally, I think it’s a great kept secret.”
