Heavy Snow Invites Students to Utilize Bronx Slopes

By The Fordham Ram on February 12, 2014 • ( 0 )

By KRIS VENEZIA
BRONX CORRESPONDENT

Fordham students took advantage of the snow days and ample snowfall to venture into the Bronx for lighthearted fun. (Photo Courtesy of FLICKR)

There is no other way to put it: the weather is terrible. It’s cold, there’s slushy, wet snow and ice all over the place and every other day the Internet tells me to expect another foot of snow with freezing rain, sleet and 30 mile-per-hour winds.

I’ve now realized that I’m going to have to make the best of this situation. I could write that I am making lemonade with lemons, but I hate clichés, so I’m not going to do that. Instead, I’m going to tell you the best places to go sledding in the Bronx, N.Y., according to the Internet.

Step one to having an awesome time sledding: having an object to sit or lay on when going down a hill. The obvious choice would be to have an actual sled, but that can cost you $15 — $20, and for a college student, that’s a little expensive.

The website “Living On a Dime” gives some alternatives to the classic sled. The site claims that laundry baskets, large couch cushions and big pieces of cardboard work well for sledding.

My suggestion is to go with cardboard, as local businesses are usually more than willing to give cardboard boxes away for free.

Now that you have your sled, or trash bags, or laundry basket or cardboard, it’s time to find a good place to shred.

The New York City Parks Department offers a list of places in the Bronx that are good spots for sledding. My favorite on the list, Claremont Park, is great because of the location on 173rd Street and Webster Avenue.

The park is a short 15 minute ride from campus on the BX 41. There are quality hills in the center of the park, and multiple hills means less people will be in the way when you’re sledding.

The NYC Parks Department also suggests Crotona Park, located on 175th Street and Crotona Avenue. The trek to this spot takes roughly 20 minutes, with a short trip on the BX 17.

Crotona boasts a good hill behind baseball field No. 3 at Fulton Avenue and the Cross Bronx Expressway. The only issue with this location is that the crowds can pick up, and there is only one slope.

The final sledding spot near the Rose Hill campus has by far the best name, Shoelace Park.

This spot is located in the northern Bronx, between 220th and 230th Street and Bronx Boulevard.

Getting to Shoelace Park takes about 25 minutes, with a ride northbound on the BX 41.

Samantha Marinucci, GSAS ’15, grew up in Westchester, N.Y., and has lived within a half hour drive of Fordham since she was born.

She said that ever since she was young, sledding has been one of her favorite winter activities. “I’ve been shredding hills ever since I was a little one,”

“I would have gone to the Winter Olympics in Sochi for bobsledding, but I didn’t want to embarrass the rest of the world,”
Marinucci said.

With this list of slopes, there is no excuse not to sled when the next winter storm comes and leaves another few inches of snow.

If Jamaica can make the Winter Olympics for bobsledding, a couple of Fordham students should easily be able to compete for the United States in the 2018 games.