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North Brooklyn Parks Alliance kicks off the season with Garden Club at Bushwick Inlet Park

BUSHWICK INLET PARK — The Garden Club initiative at Bushwick Inlet Park gathered volunteers and horticulturists from the North Brooklyn Parks Alliance to revive the diverse waterfront space on May 11. The young park has faced many battles, most recently with overgrown weeds threatening the indigenous wildlife.

“The main issue with this park is that it was installed as a native plant meadow and intended to support the wildlife here like our native insects, bees and birds,” said Director of Strategy and Communications at NBK Parks Karrie Witkin. “Unfortunately, it became overrun almost immediately with invasive species. Those plants that are intended to grow here get choked out by plants that don’t actually serve biodiversity and don’t serve the creatures that live here at all.”

The Garden Club addressed the weeds and overgrowth by digging out invasive species like mugwort. As they worked, horticulturist Jeff Hewitt defined each plant and explained the park’s ecosystem. 

“As an environmentalist and horticulturist, there’s always been an emphasis on creating gardens where gardens are difficult to be made,” said Jeff Hewitt, the first Horticultural Stewardship Manager at Bushwick Inlet Park. “It has a lot of challenges, but we’re meeting those challenges by mustering the community and getting people to jump in and bring about a vision that was started in the community 20 or 30 years before when there was a clamoring for green spaces.” 

“We’ve been doing Garden Club for the last several years. It’s a program that we developed during the pandemic, but originally, it was primarily focused at Under the K Bridge Park,” said Katie Denny Horowitz, Executive Director of the North Brooklyn Parks Alliance. “We had some one-offs here in Bushwick Inlet Park last year. As we started this season, we wanted more regular, dedicated stewardship programming that was in every space where we had dedicated gardeners.”

Bushwick Inlet Park is a newer park that has faced many hurdles since its conception in 2005. Spanning 27 acres across Greenpoint and Williamsburg and made up of six “parcels,” only around one-third of the park is currently open. NBK Parks aims to use volunteer opportunities to activate the park for the community. 

“What we’re standing in right now is a part of a larger 27-acre park that was promised to the community 20 years ago. [The parcels are] being developed according to their own timelines based on that acquisition timeline or how it was used in the past,” said Denny Horowitz. “Little by little, these smaller parcels are being acquired and developed, and one day, this puzzle will actually create a 27-acre waterfront park. It’s amazing.”

Despite its prime location, the incomplete park eludes many newer residents. 

“It’s confusing for the community because they walk by this parcel, and it’s like, ‘Oh, it’s a construction site.’ That’s so many people unless they were involved over the last 20 years in these conversations. Our newer residents may not even know that there’s going to be a 27-acre park here,” said Denny Horowitz.

As the volunteers worked, passers-by stopped to inquire about their efforts. By working in the front garden beds with street access to Kent Avenue, the Garden Club brought attention to the important work happening in the park.

“I think it’s just a good way for people to come together and do something on a gorgeous day like this where they can just help out and make their community a little bit greener and a little bit better and more beautiful for people,” said Vincent Dipietra, a Horticultural Fellow with NBK Parks. “Some people come down here, and they see the hard work that people are doing, and maybe they’re inspired to be part of this too.”

“It’s a great way to feel more connected to people,” said Jade Francis, a volunteer. “You see people in the garden, but you also see them on the street, and that makes a big difference to your life and how connected you feel to where you live. I think it’s like a great way of getting involved and getting your hands dirty.”

Some of the volunteers were new to the neighborhood and sought out the Garden Club as a way to make new connections. 

“I just wanted to show up and help. I just signed up and showed up, and they put me to work, which is great,” said Karen Meadows, a running coach who moved to Williamsburg from the Upper East Side. “I’ve learned how to show up for somebody else and how good that feels.” 

“Usually on Saturday, I’m like, ’Oh, I don’t want to get up,’ but when I’m here, I’m so happy I did because all the people are here, and they’re so helpful and so knowledgeable. It just feels good to help because it’s not about me,” Meadows continued.

Destiny Troullos moved to Williamsburg from California, where sustainability and environmentalism were part of her everyday life. Bringing that passion for the environment to her new home, Troullos joined the Garden Club after learning about it from an Instagram post. 

“Wherever I am, I care about what’s happening around me in terms of the parks, and the animals, and the pollinators. Giving back to the community is nice and feels good, and hopefully, I meet some people and build a community for myself,” said Troullos. 

Maggie Voss and Tucker Chorpening are roommates who joined the Garden Club together. 

“My roommate, Tucker, found this volunteer opportunity, and I’ve been wanting to find organizations in the area to volunteer with, so it seemed like a good time. I’m big into environmentalism, and I think it’s cool to create an urban ecosystem,” said Voss. 

“Similarly to Maggie, I like playing in the dirt,” said Chorpening, who initially moved to New York for graduate school. “This is my first time not being a student since I was five years old, and so I want to find new ways to find community and just get involved directly in my neighborhood. I was lucky to find the Alliance.”

Witkin noted that the Garden Club is the first regularly occurring event that NBK Parks has hosted. Though most of the volunteers are local, some traveled from other neighborhoods to participate. Most of the volunteers were new to the Alliance. 

“Only one person has volunteered with us before, and that person had volunteered with us for the first time like two or three weeks ago,” Witkin said. “It’s a very new crowd, which is exciting to me. You tend to think there’s a core group of people in the neighborhood, and they just do this thing, but actually, it’s reaching a newer and newer audience.”

“Gardening and doing plant work always feels highly productive. As a software engineer, I type on a computer all the time, and everything I do is virtual, and to actually do something feels good,” said Nick Rohn, a returning volunteer who lives around the corner from the park on Berry Street. “The best advice is to just do it and get out here because the more hands we have helping, the better we can make the parks look and the more space we can get.”

The Garden Club at Bushwick Inlet Park meets on the second Saturday of each month throughout the summer. Garden Clubs at other parks in Community District 1 are planned for each weekend.