Jun. 24, 2025 By Kacie Moschella June is World Ocean Month. To mark World Ocean Day, volunteers gathered outside the New York Aquarium along the Atlantic Ocean to pick up litter. The volunteers took part in the aquarium’s annual Ocean Shell-a-bration Weekend, a three-day event celebrating the vital role oceans play in our lives…
Jun. 19, 2025 By Kirstyn Brendlen The people of South Williamsburg have, for decades, dealt with the long-term effects of environmental abuses and climate change. New York City considers the nabe an environmental justice area — meaning it has suffered “disproportionate negative impacts due to historical and existing social inequities without equal protection and…
Jun. 17, 2025 By Kirstyn Brendlen The creatures of the Atlantic Ocean will shimmy up the beach and onto the boardwalk on June 21 as the 43rd annual Coney Island Mermaid Parade returns to mark the unofficial start of summer in Brooklyn. Around 5,000 participants are hard at work sewing together their homemade costumes…
Jun. 5, 2025 By Regina Martinez In 1925, Ernest F. Coe, a landscape designer and nurseryman from Connecticut, donated a collection of Japanese trees and shrubs to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. Now, a century later, the garden is marking the anniversary of that gift with a months-long tribute to the art of bonsai and…
May. 22, 2025 By Kirstyn Brendlen Meera Joshi, the city’s former Deputy Mayor for Operations, is taking charge of a new group of New Yorkers: the 570,000 permanent residents of Green-Wood Cemetery. Joshi, who resigned from City Hall earlier this year over Mayor Eric Adams’ willingness to cooperate with President Donald Trump, has been…
May. 5, 2025 By Paul Frangipane & Kirstyn Brendlen For 15 years, Flower Bed-Stuy has equipped locals and community groups with the supplies they need to bring the neighborhood to life — literally. On May 3, neighbors gathered once again to celebrate the event’s 15th anniversary and pick up their flowers and other supplies…
Apr. 23, 2025 By Kirstyn Brendlen The city officially launched its “Adopt-A-Catch Basin” pilot program in Greenpoint on Tuesday, hoping to deputize locals as volunteer storm drain supervisors. Greenpointers who sign up for the program will be responsible for cleaning debris — like leaves and trash — out of their assigned catch basin so…
Apr. 22, 2025 By Gabriele Holtermann Council Member Chi Ossé, New Yorkers for Parks (NY4P) and local park advocates rallied Monday at Herbert Von King Park in Bedford-Stuyvesant, calling on Mayor Eric Adams to restore funding for the city’s Parks Department and 800 parks-related jobs. Park advocates say underfunding and understaffing have led to…
Apr. 17, 2025 By Gabriele Holtermann The Trump administration on Wednesday pulled the plug on Empire Wind 1, the largest offshore wind project in New York, citing concerns over its approval process. In a statement on X, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum said he directed the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management to…
Apr. 17, 2025 By Kirstyn Brendlen The bottom of the Gowanus Canal is not, strictly speaking, a hospitable environment. It’s covered in a thick layer of contaminated sediment, the product of more than 150 years of industrial pollution and combined sewer overflow. The toxic sludge, nicknamed “black mayonnaise, is packed with coal tar, heavy…