Bronx District 5 - "Cleanest District"

Bronx District 5 is located in the mid-west section of the borough and includes Washington Bridge Park, Aqueduct Walk, and Sedgwick Playground.

In all, the district team maintains 1 large park, 3 small parks, 20 playgrounds, 9 sitting areas, and 15 Greenstreets. They care for 20 acres of parkland in just 1.4 square miles, in a very densely populated district with over 130,000 residents. Despite the heavy use of these sites, District 5 was able to achieve cleanliness ratings of 95.7% for FY09, an improvement from a strong score of 91.3% the previous year.

The district team employed several strategies to achieve these high ratings. The four mobile crews regularly visited and closely inspected each park every day. Staff locked each of the parks up at night to reduce incidents of vandalism. Volunteers were enlisted to help with maintenance and gardening throughout the district, as well as special projects including tree planting with the Natural Resources Group (NRG). Most encouragingly, University Woods became a focus park and passed inspection for two years in a row after many years as a little used and difficult to maintain site.