Greenhouse Gang is back! Join us April 15th as we kick off Spring with our first hands-on event!
NCA welcomes volunteers and horticulture enthusiasts to help us expand our native nursery, propagated from locally collected wild seed. Plants grown in our greenhouse are used to supplement our restoration projects around the Creek, maintain the rooftop meadows at Kingsland Wildflowers, and integrated into our Newtown Native Nursery. This is an ideal opportunity for those looking to support an attractive habitat for our local ecology.
Join us for Open Hours at Kingsland Wildflowers — an opportunity for the public to learn about the green roofs, the native plants present, and the Newtown Creek while enjoying the golden hour from our scenic wildflower meadows. Open hours are free and open to the public and will take place every Friday from April 18 to June 27, 2025, weather-permitting.
For the 2025 Open Hours season, we are excited to also be opening our Newtown Native Nursery, allowing visitors to explore (and purchase) native plants that we grow on site, and can be a great addition for any greenspace you may have or be involved in!
This is a family friendly event, kindly keep in mind that we use our green roofs as an educational resource, we prefer that furry friends stay at home.
This 5-mile bike tour, hosted by Newtown Creek Alliance and the Last Mile Coalition, will explore the expanding infrastructure of commodity circulation, and the real-world footprint of e-commerce, around the Creekside neighborhood of Maspeth. This present condition comes in the context of 200+ years of Newtown Creek transportation logistics, from horse-carts and barges to rails and trucks.
The rise of e-commerce has seen a rapid increase in last-mile developments in the industrial business zones, like those surrounding Newtown Creek. These mega facilities bring significant amounts of increased truck traffic to overburdened communities leading to higher levels of congestion, worsened air quality, urban heat island impacts, stormwater runoff, as well as ongoing issues with worker protections, fair wagers, and labor rights. NYC is now working to implement a special permit process to curtail the proliferation of last mile facilities, thanks in large part to the advocacy from elected leaders and the Last Mile Coalition (of which NCA is a member).
Join the Newtown Creek Alliance for a walking tour to witness and discuss a number of key environmental issues and public access opportunities along Newtown Creek. The tour will bring us to key street-end areas that we are targeting for enhanced public access, improved safety, and opportunities for restoration and ecological benefits. We will begin at Cooper Park in East Williamsburg and culminate at the Kingsland Wildflowers Green Roof, where participants can join in NCA’s weekly Open Hours series to enjoy the sunset from the green roof meadows. In total, the walk is approx. 3.5 miles long.
Newtown Creek Alliance invites you to join us at Plank Road for the annual Riverkeeper Sweep! Plank Road is a unique street end site in Maspeth Queens that we have been working to restore for both wildlife and local workers/residents alike. We aim to engage folks with this rare public waterfront access area through hands-on projects that can help improve environmental conditions along the shore and in the Creek itself.
Hear from Willis Elkins, Executive Director of Newtown Creek Alliance, and Ron Weissbard, Director of Superfund and Hazardous Materials at NYC Department of Environmental Protection, about about the history and future of Newtown Creek, while taking in unique views of the creek’s continuously evolving waterfronts.
Newtown Creek, on the border between Brooklyn and Queens, has been a center for industrial activity since the early 1800s—and has been a dumping ground for pollutants and hazardous material for just as long. Once a vibrant marshland, the Creek suffered nearly 150 years of unregulated industrial waste, sewage discharge, and oil spills from the refineries that lined its banks.
Through tremendous efforts by community advocates and investment by federal, state, and city governments, planning for the remediation of Newtown Creek is underway. The US Environmental Protection Agency designated the creek as a Superfund site, and recently finalized a plan for dredging and stabilizing its contaminated sediment.
Join the Newtown Creek Alliance (NCA) and the Last Mile Coalition for an exciting walking tour showcasing existing and planned freight infrastructure around the Dutch Kills tributary in Long Island City, Queens. In recent years, mega-warehouses (dubbed ‘last mile’ facilities), have proliferated in industrial areas around Newtown Creek and other neighborhoods of New York City.
The rise of e-commerce has seen a rapid increase in last-mile developments in the industrial business zones, like those surrounding Newtown Creek. These mega facilities bring significant amounts of increased truck traffic to overburdened communities leading to higher levels of congestion, worsened air quality, urban heat island impacts, stormwater runoff, as well as ongoing issues with worker protections, fair wagers, and labor rights. NYC is now working to implement a special permit process to curtail the proliferation of last mile facilities, thanks in large part to the advocacy from elected leaders and the Last Mile Coalition (of which NCA is a member).
The guided walk will begin at the Hunters Point Avenue 7 train station and head towards the Dutch Kills tributary before ending at the Kingsland Wildflowers green roof, where participants can join in NCA’s weekly Open Hours series to enjoy the sunset from the green roof meadows and redraw our walking path.
Past Events
This 7-mile bike tour will follow the proposed route of the Department of Environmental Protection’s planned Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO) Storage Tunnel for Newtown Creek. Years in the making, this massive, multi-billion dollar infrastructure project will bring much needed relief and reduction to the repeated discharging of untreated sewage entering Newtown Creek during rain events. 2025 is a critical year for designing the tunnel and getting everything lined up to begin construction in the coming years (the project completion date is 2040).
Along the way, we’ll pass pump houses, sewer grates, and CSO discharge points, stopping frequently to talk about existing infrastructure and the DEP’s planned underground work.
🤔Did you know over 1.2 BILLION gallons of raw sewage enters Newtown Creek every year? Why is there so much untreated sewage getting released into the Creek? Where does it come from? How does it impact water quality? How are humans and wildlife affected by this? What are the health concerns? What is being done to address the raw sewage? How can we help?
Wanna know the answers to these questions? Newtown Creek Alliance is hosting recurring community information sessions at the Greenpoint Library to provide neighbors with knowledge about Newtown Creek and create an ongoing dialogue for environmental advocacy, stewardship, and action. Each session will discuss ongoing topics about Newtown Creek, how it became so polluted, what the concerns are now, and what we can do about it. Come join the conversation!
When: Thursday, February 20th, 6:00 – 7:30 PM
Where: Eco Lab 1, Greenpoint Library, 107 Norman Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11222
🗓️Mark your calendars for the next Newtown Creek Superfund CAG meeting in February!
Join us to learn more about EPA’s plan for cleaning up the East Branch tributary of Newtown Creek, as outlined in the Record of Decision. EPA will also discuss their responses to the comments submitted by the CAG last fall regarding the East Branch Early Action Proposed Cleanup Plan.
When: Wednesday, February 19th, 6:30 PM
Where: LaGuardia Community College, Room: E-111, 31-10 Thomson Ave, Long Island City, NY 11101 & Zoom
Get ready for an action-packed day advocating for the future of Newtown Creek! Newtown Creek Alliance, North Brooklyn Community Boathouse (NBCB), and Riverkeeper are teaming up for a hands-on event centered around the EPA’s Proposed Early Action Cleanup of the East Branch tributary of Newtown Creek. This is the first proposed Superfund cleanup of our waterway and we are concerned that the plan doesn’t go far enough to protect long term human and ecological health. What are the exact issues, and how do we propose improving the plan? Come find out!
Join us for our annual celebration of Newtown Creek! Bringing together community members, local businesses, and long-time champions of the Creek, Tidal Toast is an evening of inspiration and impact.
We are thrilled to celebrate the 2024 Restore, Reveal, and Revitalize Honorees Randy Austin, Shino Tanikawa, and Tri-Lox, for their amazing work as environmental stewards of Newtown Creek and the local community.