2026 Environmental Forum – Speaker Synopses

Green Spaces Then & Now
Celebrating New York City 1626-2026

As executive Director of the Brooklyn Greenway Initiative (the “Initiative:), HUNTER ARMSTRONG provided a history and detailed plan for developing greenways in Brooklyn and elsewhere. His talk focused on the intersection of landscape design, ecology, public access, and urban history.  The Initiative began 21 years ago as a nonprofit focusing on extending greenways citywide. It began by focusing on the 29 – mile Brooklyn Waterfront Greenway and establishing safe, functional, and genuinely green public corridors throughout the borough. The Initiative has also contributed citywide through the New York City Greenways Coalition of more than 50 organizations.

Beginning 10 years ago and continuing today, the Initiative has devoted substantial effort on the creation and stewardship of the Naval Cemetery Landscape (“NCL”). The NCL is located on a 19^th century cemetery with some confirmed human remains. The site was designed by Nelson Byrd Landscape Architects and Marvel Architects. It is supported by Nature Sacred and the TKF Foundation. The site is now a 1.7-acre pollinator meadow within the Brooklyn Navy Yard and surrounded by the Brooklyn Queens Expresssway, an area not conducive to the development of green spaces. The Initiative has installed wooden boardwalks to protect the ground. Although the site has limited digging possibilities and lacks irrigation, the Initiative has been able to develop a climate-resilient landscape, providing a rare public refuge and an ecological habitat for more than 90 plant species and 85 birds (identified in 2024). It is also a monarch butterfly way station.

Hunter also discussed how the Initiative contributed to the development of a distinct definition of greenways – a linear space that connects communities and parks, accommodates people of all ages and abilities; provides permanent physical separation from motor vehicles; and includes meaningful green spaces that connect people to their environment. He highlighted recent advocacy successes, including New York City’s first comprehensive greenways plan since the 1990s. He closed by encouraging the attendees to consider how local green spaces might one day connect through a citywide greenway system.

Jennifer is the founder and Executive Director of the Bronx is Blooming (BiB) which was founded in 2011 and focuses on greenspaces in the Bronx. BiB fosters youth-driven, community stewardship of Bronx green spaces. This Summer BiB will have almost 100 participants in its youth programs in 13 parks and green spaces. Although Bronx is the “greenest” borough, its parks are concentrated in the northern part and are not that accessible.  

Funding for this work is vastly smaller than in Manhattan whose public funding is 4 times as great and whose private funding is 230 times as great. 

There still are gaps and opportunities: Care and maintenance of green spaces, funding, capacity (time, training and resources), connection between people and place, communities that care but lack support & young people willing to help but lack pathways.

BiB’s goal is to grow and support the culture of environmental stewardship in the Bronx.

From mission to action: BiB works with communities in ways in which they can engage: BiB provides 3-7 programs a week; after-school & weekends.

Community engagement exists in every community member who says “How can I help” or those who start with “Why bother? It just gets destroyed”. This is why continued care and love of these spaces by students help us do this work.

Summer programs provide youth leadership pathways. BiB has summer program students who stay year after year and become leaders. BiB was able to fund paid internships in the spring and fall. These high school and college student interns lead almost all community programming, caring and doing the work.

BiB’s early work was with tree stewardship, which was the most economical of scarce resources and long-lasting impact. When they started planting they focused on pollinator gardens for a big impact on small spaces.  Self-sustaining native plants support communities and wildlife in about 40 public and private gardens & greens spaces.

BiB looks for opportunities in challenging spaces. For example, they took surplus plants from another space to build a pollinator bed on a steep space that the Parks Department had struggled to maintain.

BiB is also building forests. In Soundview P,ark they will plant 5,000 trees in the next 5 years to create a forest and coastal resilience.  

BiB’s impact: provided 650+ seasonal jobs, engaged 27,000 volunteers in 50+ parks and greenspaces, added some 50,000 native plants and today provides service hours equivalent to 10 full time staff.

Presentation by Lynn B. Kelly, Executive Director, New York Restoration Project (and 2021 Recipient of the CGC Medal of Honor for her previous work with New Yorkers 4 Parks)

Fundamental Belief of New York Restoration Project: “Nature is a fundamental human right of all New Yorkers.”

In 1995, after 50 years of neglect and underfunding, New York City parks’ condition appalled Bette Midler.  She decided to do something about it! She organized groups to pick up trash, to clean and restore Fort Washington and Fort Tryon Parks.  What began as local park cleanups has evolved in 30 years into a city-wide conservancy with three important focuses. 

PARKS:  The NYRP stewards 801 acres of parkland in northern Manhattan.  Not long ago it transformed Highbridge and Sherman Creek Parks from “living chop shops” to peaceful oases.  The needs of these parks further inspired two NYRP initiatives: Coastal Resilience and Reforestation.  In Sherman Creek Park NYRP built artificial oyster reefs and planted marsh grass to restore habitat.  In Highbridge Park where a fungal blight has nearly driven the American Chestnut to extinction, NYRP found a new blight-resistant hybrid and planted 200 saplings which are now thriving.  In 2007, Mayor Bloomberg launched his “Million Trees” project which was completed ahead of schedule in 2015.  Since 2008, NYRP has distributed 3,500 trees annually to expand the urban canopy.

COMMUNITY GARDENS:  NYRP owns and operates 50 plus community gardens across the 5 boroughs.  When Giuliani was mayor, he intended to sell off 114 lots for development, many of which were cherished community gardens. NYRP partnered with the Trust for Public Land to buy and preserve these gardens.  51 of them became part of NYRP’s portfolio.  In managing the gardens, NYRP works closely with community members. 

BUILDING NEW GARDENS: NYRP renovates and builds new gardens for community-based organizations (schools, libraries, churches, senior centers) in underserved neighborhoods. They have completed more than 300 of these projects in all 5 boroughs in the last 15 years.  To accommodate the increasing need for fresh produce since COVID, NYRP offers the option of a year of free training in urban agriculture.  That training is also offered in all 51 of NYRP’s community gardens.  It and has been taken by thousands.

So far over 1.6 million New Yorkers live within a ten-minute walk of an NYRP green space.

Matt Malina is the Founder and Executive Director of NYC H2O, a nonprofit environmental educational organization focused on restoring and expanding freshwater habitats in New York City. He represented the borough of Queens and focused on the work being done at the Ridgewood Reservoir and the educational programs for children within the organization.

In 2008, Matt received a scholarship from The City Gardens Club to attend a nature workshop for teachers in Maine. This workshop completely changed his life within a year as he pivoted from being a public-school teacher with little exposure to nature to a true advocate for green spaces.

A major focus of the NYC H2O is to remove phragmites(reeds) from the Ridgewood Reservoir that borders the Queens/Brooklyn line. These reeds are an aggressive invasive plant that outcompetes natural plants for light, water and nutrients. To improve the biodiversity of the reservoir and promote regrowth of natural plants, the reeds are physically removed by a team of 16 eco-interns and then composted for two years. After that, the composted reeds are used to plant wetland species such as elderberry shrubs allowing “nature to heal itself”. The reservoir now attracts pollinators such as bees and has become a haven for broadleaf cattails, buttonbush shrubs, pied-billed grebes, snapping turtles, and crayfish. With more than one and a half acres of reeds being removed, it is a premier New York City birding area for over 170 documented species of birds.

A second focus of the organization is to provide educational programs to school children that focuses on “educational fun” while taking care of parks throughout the city. A made-up game of “Tree Races” allows students to make observations about various trees such as the bark and leaves of a tree and the insects and fruits found on the tree. This game has fostered curiosity in the children about the nature that surrounds them evryday. Children have also participated in outings to Plumb Beach in Brooklyn, a saltwater beach and wetland, and Baisley Pond Park in Queens, a park with diverse wildlife and a 30-acre pond. Since 2014, more that 400 schools and 53,000 students have taken part in these programs.

In closing, Matt stated the 10-year goal of the organization is to have an educational team in every borough of the city to bring more kids outside and to have more people engaged in naturalist stewardships.

As Director of the New York City Parks Plant Ecology Center & Nursery (PECaN) in Staten Island, Lucy is responsible for supplying plants for New York City’s parks and other publicly funded spaces.  The nursery is located on 13 acres of former farmland next to the salt marsh buffering the Fresh Kills former landfill.  PECaN is the largest municipally funded nursery in the country. It supplies locally sourced plants and seeds & ecological expertise for restoration of NYC natural areas on public lands.

PECaN offers planning and species selection. It grows 100,000-250,000 native plants per year & collects and produces seeds from 100-200 species annually. They offer high quality locally adapted trees, shrubs, forbs, graminoids, vines, and ferns.

PECaN has 6 greenhouses plus two satellite locations in Floyd Bennet Field and Fresh Kills

Their seed bank includes 600 species. PECaN also produces wild collections blended for maximum diversity to provide long term resilience, which for lower long-term maintenance and replacement cost. Local fit and diversity matter because they provide better establishment & long-term survival, stronger performance under environmental stress, and lower maintenance and replacement costs.

PeCaN is publicly funded. Funding can vary year to year. PECaN also acts as a learning site for practitioners and volunteers to support it mission, get extra hands & engage the public & to share in their work

PECaN does not lead projects; it enables them & supports those doing the work.

But PECaN faces real constraints: Demand far exceeds supply. Climate uncertainty (means exploring more varieties that may adapt over time). It faces space and capacity constraints as well as a need for coordination across sectors.

PECaN ‘s key priorities are climate adapted plant material, stronger coordination of interested parties, plant production treated as essential urban infrastructure and decentralized production with partner organizations.

Among the challenges there are also some positive developments such as NYC’s 25 million trees by 2033 initiative, the Citywide urban forest plan, regional seed networks & shared collections, decentralized plant production with partners, community science and performance monitoring of plants.