Saturday March 29th even as rain was coming down people gathered at the Broadway/West 242nd Street and at the Jerome/Bainbridge Avenues entrances to Van Cortlandt Park to walk the Old Croton Aqueduct Trail from both ends to the middle where the Deegan Highway cuts right through the trail. As both groups encountered the Deegan Highway as in the photo above, the highway prevented the people from connecting with one another. All that could happen were that the two groups of people could wave to each other across the highway, and hold signs which read "Give us a bridge to connect the two broken parts of the Old Croton Trail".
As traffic passed by cars and even trucks honked their support for the pedestrian bridge over the highway as you will see in the photos below. There was a meeting finally at Schandler Field with several elected officials to sing a song about building the bridge to re-connect the broken parts of the Old Croton Aqueduct trail. The elected officials and several park activist called on the city to honor its agreement from 1999 that put the plans to build the pedestrian bridge over the Deegan Highway to re-connect the Old Croton Aqueduct Trail. Click on any photo to make it larger.
This was the group that started from Jerome/Bainbridge Avenues traveling west on the Old Croton Aqueduct Trail that stops at the Deegan Highway.
Left - The Old Croton Aqueduct Trail as it appears on the Jerome/Bainbridge Avenues side.
Right - The marker for the trail.
Left - This was the view from east side of the Deegan Highway at the point where the highway goes right through the Old Croton Aqueduct Trail.
Right - Driver of the Oreo truck honks in support of the signs for the pedestrian bridge over the highway.
Left - Even as the rain was coming down it could not dampen the spirits of those who came.
Right - Dart Westphal and Steve Murphy lead the group in a song they wrote for the building of the pedestrian bridge over the Deegan Highway. 
Left - Councilman Andrew Cohen leads a group of people that were on the west side of the Deegan Highway as they finally arrive at Schandler Field for the second part of the rally.
Right - Father Richard Gorman Chair of the Croton Filtration Monitoring Committee & Community Board 12 tells of the problems with the DEP, and the denials by the DEP that the pedestrian bridge was a part of the deal that allowed the Water Filtration Plant to be built in Van Cortlandt Park.
Councilman Andrew Cohen, State Senator Marcos Serrano, Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz, Christine Taylor of the Friends of VCP, Congressman Eliot Engel, Father Gorman, and Park Activist Karen Argenti show their disapproval that the pedestrian bridge over the Deegan Highway has not been built.
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