{"id":24428,"date":"2025-10-31T19:08:26","date_gmt":"2025-10-31T19:08:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/24428\/"},"modified":"2025-10-31T19:08:26","modified_gmt":"2025-10-31T19:08:26","slug":"prospect-park-receives-10m-endowment-to-support-brooklyns-only-forest-brooklyn-paper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/24428\/","title":{"rendered":"Prospect Park receives $10M endowment to support Brooklyn\u2019s only forest \u2022 Brooklyn Paper"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\"prospect\t\t\t<\/p>\n

The Prospect Park Alliance has received a $10 million endowment to support its forest and natural areas. <\/p>\n

Photo courtesy of Prospect Park Alliance<\/p>\n

Prospect Park, home to Brooklyn\u2019s last remaining forest and only lake, is an oasis for New Yorkers.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also very expensive to maintain, especially after budget cuts to the city\u2019s parks department.\n<\/p>\n

This week, lifelong Brooklynite Shelby White gifted the Prospect Park Alliance<\/a> a $10 million endowment through the Leon Levy Foundation, <\/a>which she founded in 2004.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cBrooklyn\u2019s tree canopy is our modern cathedral, reconnecting city dwellers to nature even in the heart of the busiest city in the United States,,\u201d said Morgan Monaco, president of the Prospect Park Alliance. \u201cIt is vital for climate resilience, public health, and sustaining biodiversity, and today we celebrate a gift that will secure this legacy for the future.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"prospectMorgan Monaco, president of the Prospect Park Alliance (left) with Shelby White, who gifted the Alliance with a $10 million endowment this week. Photo courtesy of Prospect Park Alliance<\/p>\n

In the short-term, the endowment will allow the park to hire four new ecological zone gardeners, Monaco explained. Prospect Park has a range of diverse ecological areas and currently employs a team of seven\u201cecological zone gardeners\u201d who tend to the specific needs of each section.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Four new zone gardeners will be hired thanks to the endowment, Monaco said. They will work in two areas of the park \u2014 the Ravine, which last year was ravaged by a brush fire<\/a>, and Lakeside, in the southeast corner of the park. The Ravine has since been stabilized and partially reseeded, and is well on its way to recovery. In the coming weeks, volunteers will plant more than 3,000 native plants and shrubs in the Ravine.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll make sure each zone has the right staffing structure to fully maintain a complex and diverse ecosystem,\u201d she said. \u201cIt will provide funding for the staff positions as well as tools, materials and vehicles that are required to help ensure that those staff members are successful.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"prospectA brush fire severely damaged the Ravine last November. File photo courtesy of Michelle Paggi, Ph.D.\/via REUTERS<\/p>\n

The park\u2019s annual operating budget is about $17 million, Monaco said, not counting roughly $5 million from the city\u2019s parks department.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately, the parks department budget has really declined over the past several decades,\u201d she said. \u201cPart of our mission is to help make sure that we\u2019re growing our resources, to be able to make sure the ball doesn\u2019t get dropped and that New Yorkers get to experience the clean, safe, resilient park they deserve.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

White said she grew up exploring the park, rowing in the lake with her father and birding along its leafy trails on a school trip.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was when I first learned about the BBC,\u201d she said. \u201cNot the one people know about, but the Brooklyn Birding Club. The real BBC.\u201d
\n\"prospectWhite said the park has always felt like a \u201cwonderland.\u201dPhoto by Kirstyn Brendlen\n<\/p>\n

As a child, Prospect Park seemed like a \u201cwonderland,\u201d White said. Decades later, it still does, and she was delighted to provide funding to support its future.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really a privilege to be able to do it,\u201d she said. \u201cI never, growing up, dreamed I would be in such a position. I am thrilled to be able to give back.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Malcolm Gore, the Alliance\u2019s arborist, is the primary caretaker for the park\u2019s 30,000 trees. He spends his days pruning, planting, watering, cleaning up debris, and keeping track of how the trees are faring. His work overlaps significantly with the work of the zone gardeners, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are like the first eyes on the ground for me,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019ll tell me if something has come down, or if something looks bad or problematic, and then we\u2019ll collaborate to do cleanup as well and to do removal of invasive species together.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"prospectNearly a year after the fire, the Ravine is being reseeded and replanted. Photo courtesy of Prospect Park Alliance<\/p>\n

Caring for so many trees can be \u201coverwhelming,\u201d he said, and the $10 million endowment is a comfort. Four new permanent gardeners can make his job \u2014 and his life \u2014 a little easier.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is Brooklyn\u2019s only old-growth forest, that\u2019s really important,\u201d Gore said. \u201cNot just to me, but to all the birds and the insects and everyone who\u2019s coming through here. Having old, large trees is really special in this day and age, most of them were clear-cut, so the fact that we\u2019re getting this endowment to protect those trees is really meaningful.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The funding comes nearly a year after a brush fire<\/a> ravaged two acres of the park\u2019s Ravine, destroying layers of plant life and several mature trees.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Prospect Park Alliance has received a $10 million endowment to support its forest and natural areas. Photo…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24429,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,99,15727,12694,15728,15729,3242,545,15730,2969,2420,15731,15732,15733,15734,15735,15736,15737,9,24,12,370,63,15738,10649,15739,15740,8645,15741,15742,11447,15743],"class_list":["post-24428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-brush-fire","tag-donation","tag-ecology","tag-endowment","tag-environment","tag-fire","tag-forest","tag-funding","tag-garden","tag-gardeners","tag-greenspaces","tag-invasive-species","tag-lakeside","tag-leon-levy-foundation","tag-malcolm-gore","tag-morgan-monaco","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-news","tag-newsletter","tag-nyc","tag-old-growth-forest","tag-parks","tag-prospect-park","tag-prospect-park-alliance","tag-recovery","tag-shelby-white","tag-the-ravine","tag-trees","tag-zone-gardeners"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24428"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24428\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}