Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tours Port Morris site to revitalize waterfront

News 12 The Bronx

by Heather Fordham

A long‑neglected stretch of shoreline in the South Bronx is drawing renewed attention as community groups and elected leaders push to restore public access to the East 132nd Street pier in Port Morris.

What appears at first glance to be a peaceful waterfront along the East River quickly reveals a different reality: a broken fence, a littered shoreline and a dead‑end street that has kept residents cut off from their own waterfront for years.

“This is what it looks like, it’s inaccessible, it’s not friendly, it says ‘dead end,’ but there should be an access point," said Mychal Johnson of South Bronx Unite, "People come here even though there is a fence up, they go through the fence on the other side to go out there to fish and bring family and that's no way we should have access to our water edge."

South Bronx Unite and the Waterfront Alliance have spent years advocating for the pier’s restoration.