Madrid Park Reconnects Once Divided Neighborhoods

Madrid Río, a six-mile long park in the heart of Madrid, replaces the blight left over from a highway that once disconnected neighborhoods and reclaims a neglected waterfront.

1 minute read

December 29, 2011, 5:00 AM PST

By Judy Chang

Michael Kimmelman reports:

"On my way from the park one day I came across Marisa Álvarez, a physical therapist, who told me that her commute from Móstoles, a sprawling, hard-hit suburb to the southwest of the city, took nearly an hour and a half each way before the new metro arrived. Now, it's 45 minutes. The metro had changed her daily life, she said.

'This is like new lungs for us,' is how Pilar López described what the new park has changed in hers. At 73, she said she has lived for more than a half-century in an apartment in a housing project nearby, suffering the fumes and noise from the highway."

Read the full story: In Madrid’s Heart, Park Blooms Where a Freeway Once Blighted

Monday, December 26, 2011 in The New York Times

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