On Saturday, March 4, and Monday, March 6, the City of New Rochelle’s Department of Development held two “design workshops” to engage the community about The LINC, a proposed linear park on Memorial Highway. 

“I believe the Linc is a thoughtful and intentional way to respond to some of the historical wrongs that were committed against this community,” said Adam Salgado, Commissioner of Development and Deputy City Manager, at the first well-attended session at Bethesda Baptist Church. “This is an opportunity for us to reconnect the Lincoln Corridor through Memorial Highway that aims, through a process of community engagement, to reclaim a portion of the road which was taken by urban renewal.” 

According to the description on the City’s website, “The LINC will replace Memorial Highway which was created in the 1950s to connect I-95 and the Hutchinson River Parkway and Cross County Parkway, but it was never fully built out. When the highway spur was built, it devastated the close-knit largely African-American community. The goal of The LINC is to build back the links between the local community and downtown, replacing a burden on the community with a unique green-space asset.”

Lifelong resident Martha McKnight Mitchell offered her thoughts on the LINC, “My dad was the second Black superintendent for New Rochelle’s Streets and Highways Department. My Mother had McKnight’s beauty salon. Right across the street here was the Palace Barber Shop, McKnight’s Beauty Salon, Huntley’s Restaurant, Washington Shoe Shack and a grocery store.” In conclusion, she added, “They don’t want us here. They want City people here so they can get on Metro North. New Rochelle is not for New Rochelle anymore. My daughter can’t afford to live here and she has a college degree.”

Seventh generation New Rochelle resident Brian Carter voiced his concerns about the proposed park. “My Grandfather, Sivan R. Mullings, was impacted by construction of Memorial Highway. Two of the houses he owned – one was a three-family, the other was a two-family  –got torn down. When I walked into Bethesda, they handed me a bunch of stickers to choose from to advocate for things in this new development: a lot of lofty ideas, gardens, lawns, dog run … that’s all well and good. What I didn’t see is affordable housing and preservation of our community’s history. The focus here is: we have money, let’s not waste this opportunity to spend money. I think we need to slow down and take a close look at how we can preserve what’s here.” 

In 2018, the City was awarded $10 million from New York State’s Downtown Revitalization Initiative Program for projects, including the LINC. In 2021, Congressman Jamaal Bowman secured a nearly $12 million grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation as part of the Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability & Equity (RAISE) for The LINC: Safety, Mobility & Economic Opportunity project.

Referring to Black families with a long history in New Rochelle, Carter commented on the Department of Development’s workshop, “I haven’t heard any Dixons mentioned. I haven’t heard any Landrines mentioned. I haven’t heard any Bartees mentioned. I haven’t heard any McKnights mentioned. I haven’t heard any Spadys mentioned. And I haven’t heard any Carters mentioned here.”

Community activist Myriam Decime commented, “I call it the ‘Linc’ but I spell it like ‘Lynch’ because I feel like they are raping and lynching the community a second time in the name of, somehow, righting the wrong that was done the first time,” Remembering the history of the Linc, Myriam recalled, “They came to us and said, ‘This is what we’re about to do.’ The community said, ‘We don’t want a linear park. We want our businesses back. We want our homes back. We want our school back. That’s what we want. That’s what was here. Now they are trying to twist it around and say, ‘This is what the community asked for.’ That’s not right!”

Shane Osinloye, who is a candidate for City Council District 4, said, “I read the application they sent up to the state to fund The Linc. Their initial intent was to create a beautification project. They wanted to replicate the Highline in Manhattan. I had this conversation with Luiz [Luiz Aragon, the former Development Commissioner] and told him that the Highline was a completely different dynamic; the housing and businesses already existed. They all existed next to a dead railway, which is why it made sense to convert the railway into an historic park. Here, Memorial Highway was built on top of homes and businesses in a historically black neighborhood that were torn down, so we need to replace the homes and businesses that were torn down. What we see here today does not do that.”

Osinloye continued, “The options provided were adult fitness, play, history, trees and vegetation, dog run, lawn, performance, gardens, group, activities, seating, public art, picnic, and then finally ‘markets and fairs,’ next to ‘other.’ Placing ‘markets and fairs’ at the bottom of the list shows they think of our economic empowerment and generational wealth as a low priority afterthought. As a consultant, I know that the first three choices you give someone are what they will think are the framework of what can be done with any project. None of these options are bad, but the primary focus of any capital project needs to be economic development. Actually, all of these things should be a given! These are all amenities for the facilities that need to be created specifically for a broader economic development initiative. This is a part of our city’s culture of treating District 3 like it’s not just as deserving of these features as everywhere else in New Rochelle. This is why we need community sourced leadership.”