Greenpoint

VIDEO: Kingsland wildflowers, a rooftop oasis in Brooklyn’s industrial north

August 8, 2018 By Liliana Bernal Special to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle
Kingsland Wildflowers roofs overlook the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant’s digester eggs tanks. Eagle photos by Liliana Bernal
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Embedded in Greenpoint’s heavily industrial area, there is the Kingsland Wildflowers roof, a meadow with grasses, flowers and sedum plants designed to support urban wildlife.

Surrounded by a scrap metal yard, a plastic recycling company, a natural gas plant and the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant, the 22,000-square-foot rooftop harbors native plants, birds and insects.

The green space consists of four green roofs sitting on top of Broadway Stages’ film studios on Kingsland Avenue. It’s the result of a neighborhood partnership that includes landscaping company Alive Structures, New York City Audubon and the Newtown Creek Alliance.

The meadow was subsidized through the Greenpoint Community Environmental Fund, an environmental grant program created with funds of a settlement with Exxon Mobil over its Greenpoint oil spill.

“This roof is very needed,” said Niki Jackson, the project coordinator. “We are not only looking at how we can solve issues around the Urban Heat Island Effect [developed areas that are hotter than nearby rural areas], cooling the areas around the space but also how we can help prevent rainwater, stormwater runoff and CSOs [combined sewage overflows] into our nearby Newtown Creek and East River as well as the air quality from all of the industry in the area.”

 

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