Kingsland Wildflower roof (photo via Kingsland Wildflower on Facebook)
Sept. 21, 2017 By Nathaly Pesantez
A festival featuring live music, food, beer, and activities will take place above the green roof of Greenpoint’s Kingsland Wildflowers this Saturday.
The second annual Kingsland Wildflowers Festival welcomes the public to tour the green roof and community engagement center of the site, located at 520 Kingsland Ave, from 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. on Sept. 23. The festival celebrates the second season of the three lush green roofs that have been planted with grasses and wildflowers native to New York City.
The festival includes a tour of the panoramic roofs with plant and wildlife experts, bird watching, and activities for children and families. Food, beer, and live music will be available through the event.
The rooftop, atop a Broadway Stages building, sits directly across Newtown Creek, and is part of a three-year project by the New York City Audobon Society, an organization that focuses on protecting wildlife, to turn the warehouse roof into a grass and wildflower meadow and a space for environmental outreach. The group received over $970,000 in 2015 from the Greenpoint Community Environmental Fund to install bird-friendly, publicly-accessible green roofs spanning an area of over 20,000 square feet.
Kingsland Wildflowers celebrated the opening of their first 10,000 square-foot of green roof at the site last year.
The GCEF funds program that make Greenpoint more green. It was created by the state attorney general and the Department of Environmental Conservation with funds obtained from an Exxon Mobil settlement over the Greenpoint oil spill.
Second Annual Kingsland Wildflowers Festival flyer
