Background: Since 2013, Newtown Creek Alliance (NCA) has been involved in stewarding and improving numerous city-owned and publicly accessible street end areas along Newtown Creek. As identified in the Newtown Creek Vision Plan, existing street-ends offer some of the most viable opportunities for increasing public access to and creating habitat along the Creek. While working towards larger redesigns we have focussed on smaller-scale improvements in recent years including the removal of thousands of pounds of debris, landscaping, path making, and planting of native perennial wildflowers - as well as entering into an MOU with the NYC Department of Transportation (DOT) to formalize this work. Yet despite the dozens of volunteer events we host each year around the Creek, a few of these locations remain active locations for illegal dumping. Since 2020 (coinciding with the COVID-19 pandemic), there has been a major increase in dumping activity City-wide, which coupled with a lack of enforcement and resources from city agencies to address the issue, is creating not just unsightly conditions along these street end areas, but directly impacting the health of our waterway.

Thanks to a generous family foundation, NCA currently has a funding match opportunity up to $5,000 to support our efforts to cleanup Newtown Creek Street-ends.

Details: We propose a year-long intensive monitoring program at 5 specific NYCDOT street-end locations in Brooklyn and Queens. NCA staff will visit each site on a weekly basis to inspect and clean the areas to prevent build up of debris and discourage dumping. Additionally, we will install night time trail cams at each location to monitor for acts of illegal dumping. Lastly, we seek to make minor physical improvements at locations, where feasible, through the installation of planters, outdoor seating and paintings of railings/barriers. We believe that this program will help transform the state of these areas and potentially help inform the enforcing agencies with specific information about illegal dumping.

Help support this effort to keep our shorelines clean, and Creek free of illegal dumping. Donate today!

$5K for Street Ends!

By Newtown Creek Alliance Incorporated

$5K for Street Ends!

Help us clean-up and improve our Newtown Creek street-end sites with this matching grant opportunity.