Jun. 20, 2025 By Kirstyn Brendlen The city’s parks department this week unveiled a new “mini forest” on a formerly little-used lot on the Williamsburg waterfront. Tucked into the North Fifth Street Pier and Park, the leafy plot is filled with native plants and trees, part of the parks department’s effort to increase the…
Jun. 9, 2025 By Megan McGibney Brooklyn residents and leaders from the business, nonprofit, higher education and political sectors gathered last week to tackle a pressing question: What policy ideas can make Brooklyn more affordable and better positioned for future growth? The symposium, held at NYU Tandon School of Engineering at MetroTech Center, was based…
Jun. 6, 2025 By Adam Daly After more than two years under scaffolding, the more than 130-year-old Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Memorial Arch at Grand Army Plaza emerged from its extensive restoration on Thursday. The $8.9 million project, led by the Prospect Park Alliance and backed by mayoral funding, also included improvements to the area surrounding…
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. 20, 2025 By Kirstyn Brendlen Summer has arrived in New York City — unofficially, at least — and Brooklyn’s beaches will open for swimming on Saturday, May 24. Lifeguards will take their stands at Coney Island beach, Brighton Beach, and Manhattan Beach at 10 a.m. that day, and the beaches will be open…
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 Gabriele Holtermann A new sculpture celebrating mothers and all caregivers was unveiled in Prospect Park on April 22. The coil-like, 15-foot-tall bronze interactive installation is part of artist Molly Gochman’s “Monuments to Motherhood” series, paying homage to caregivers whose vast contributions all too often go unnoticed. The sculpture’s two interconnected…
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. 15, 2025 By Kirstyn Brendlen To tree, or not to tree? That is the question at the center of the third lawsuit targeting the city’s long-planned overhaul of Fort Greene Park. The lush but aging greenspace was chosen as one of eight city parks to be overhauled by the Parks Without Borders program…