Photos courtesy of Kingsland Wildflowers unless otherwise noted.
In the heart of industrial Greenpoint is a hidden green surprise. Kingsland Wildflowers is a 24,000-square-foot pollinator garden, planted with native grasses and flowers, on top of Broadway Stages, a working soundstage. On Saturday, July 26, the rooftop meadow will open to the public as part of its annual Kingsland Wildflowers Festival, for an afternoon of guided tours, performances, and food and drinks from local vendors.
The green roof is the result of a 2016 collaboration between Broadway Stages, the Newtown Creek Alliance, NYC Audubon, and the landscape designers at Alive Structures. With a Greenpoint Community Environmental Fund grant and matching funds from Broadway Stages, Kingsland Wildflowers turned the bare rooftop into a community environmental hub, which has since hosted thousands of visitors for field trips, research, and education.
Overlooking the city’s largest sewage treatment facility (and its famous digester eggs), the rooftop meadow provides an unexpected green oasis in industrial Brooklyn and expands the native habitat for the city’s bird and wildlife populations.
Now in its 9th year, the Kingsland Wildflowers Festival will offer guided rooftop tours, music and performance art from NOoSPHERE Arts, a site-specific installation by Jeannie Rhyu, and storytelling from Peace Gorilla. There will also be family-friendly craft and science stations, conservation groups sharing sustainable living tips, and native plants for sale.
Enjoy food and drinks from Healthy as a Motha, The Shack, Mariana Tamiozzy, Brooklyn Brewery, Yerba Madre, and Good Mood Kombucha.
The festival takes place from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m. at 520 Kingsland Avenue. The event is free to attend, but an RSVP is encouraged.
If you can’t make it this weekend, the garden is open to the public by appointment only, Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
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