A Better Path Forward forFort Greene Park
We support many parts of NYC Parks' plan, but we oppose the removal of 78 mature trees and the historic design changes that would fundamentally alter this beloved community space.
While we support improvements to accessibility, drainage, and benches, we cannot support plans that erase 78 mature shade trees and historic design features—especially when hundreds of neighbors have spoken out against them. There's a collaborative way forward that preserves what makes this park special while addressing the community's real needs.
Our Community Counter-Proposal
Sensible improvements that preserve trees, enhance accessibility, and restore historic features without destroying the park's natural character.
Preserve, Restore, Enhance
Counter-Proposal Benefits
Our plan addresses all community needs while preserving the park's environmental and historic value.
- • Repair stone walls and pathways that have stood for generations
- • Maintain the gentle landscape mounds that kids and families love
- • Rebuild the circular plaza as a true gathering space
- • Keep the park's classic benches in the places they were meant to be
- • Add ramps at stairs so people of all ages and abilities can enjoy the park equally
- • Use paving materials that blend in naturally while being easy to navigate
- • Strengthen the retaining walls around the park's edge
- • Fix and rebuild paths to better handle rainwater
- • Narrow the oversized plaza so it doesn't create flooding
- • Use trees and granite paving to soak up runoff naturally
- • Add rain gardens that clean the water and make the park greener
- • Preserve the historic mix of tree species that give the park its character
- • Replace trees only when truly necessary for safety or health
- • Care for and prune mature trees so they thrive for decades to come
- • Shrink paved areas and enhance plant circle
- • Keep the historic pink granite that makes Fort Greene Park unique
- • Avoid adding unnecessary fencing or non-historic pavers
- • Expand tree pits/enhance herbaceous ground cover
- • No tinted concrete or industrial granite that doesn't belong in this historic park
- • Keep the park at a human scale — intimate, welcoming, and community-driven
- • Make sure gathering spaces encourage neighbors to come together, not pave them out
Why Mature Trees Matter
The environmental and health benefits of mature trees cannot be replaced by saplings for decades.
70×
More air pollution removal than small, newly planted trees
77 tons
Air pollution removed by London plane trees each year
1,432
Gallons of stormwater intercepted per street tree annually
$47
Annual electricity and natural-gas savings per tree
NYC's existing tree canopy helped children avoid 7,380 asthma-related school absencesand prevented 54 emergency-room visits and 46 hospital stays for respiratory illness.
Brooklyn neighborhoods have higher air-pollution and asthma rates, making tree removal particularly harmful.
Replacing trees with pavement will create a "frying-pan effect," trapping heat in the plaza and worsening the urban heat island.
According to one report, New York City ranks as having the worst heat island effect.
New York has declared a climate emergency and should preserve mature trees to mitigate rising temperatures.
All NYC street trees together capture 890 million gallons of stormwater annually, preventing flooding and reducing strain on the sewer system.
Mature trees have extensive root systems that far exceed saplings' water absorption capacity.
Historic and Design Legacy
The proposed plaza contradicts the park's original naturalistic design philosophy.
Fort Greene Park's original design by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux emphasized naturalistic landscapes and surprise. Olmsted drew inspiration from English country gardens to create "lungs of the city" where visitors enter an oasis, not a boulevard.
The low stone wall and tree grove create a bucolic approach where glimpses of the monument appear gradually - opening the vista would eliminate the surprise and remove reasons to enter the park.
Landscape architect Arthur Edwin Bye added rolling earth-mound features in the 1970s. He enhanced natural features to intensify human experience, and his work is considered an early ecological approach.
The proposed plaza would bulldoze these mounds, replacing popular picnic and play areas with a pedestrian thoroughfare - critics call this "a scandalous act of social engineering."
Legal and Procedural Concerns
FFGP and partners sued NYC Parks demanding an Environmental Impact Statement under SEQRA. NYC Parks tried to avoid review by claiming "no significant impact."
FOIL-released inventory shows only 9 of 58 trees scheduled for removal due to poor condition. The other 49 healthy shade trees are being cut for plaza design.
Landmarks commissioners called the design "antithetical to all approaches" of Olmsted, "more like a passage," and warned it would make the park "much like a tomb."
Take Action Now
Join thousands fighting to preserve Fort Greene Park's mature trees and naturalistic design.