Vision and Mission

Our Vision and Mission

NYC Parks' impact on NYC is considerable and our work is essential to the City's vitality. Our parks improve New Yorkers' health and quality of life, providing oases of beauty, recreation, and relaxation, particularly in communities of need. We empower people through participation and trainings, enhance the public's health from fitness classes to forests, and restore our environment’s health and resiliency. Our parks connect and unify diverse constituencies through stewardship, learning and celebration, thereby strengthening and attracting investment to communities, the building blocks of our great City. 

Our vision is to create and sustain a restorative and thriving park system for all.

Our mission is to grow, maintain and program a world-class park system prioritizing equity, access, safety and nature.  

Our value pillars include: Nature and Environment, Equity, Cleanliness and Safety, Health and Wellness, People and Culture

How We’re Accomplishing Our Mission

NYC Parks works to strengthen the health and well-being of individuals, their communities and our city’s environment, with our commitment to equity undergirding all that we do. 

Enhancing the Health and Well Being of New Yorkers

NYC Parks works to improve the physical and mental health of New Yorkers and help them thrive. We invest in the human capital of our city, providing everything from free fitness classes, festivals, cultural activities and community engagement opportunities to job training and apprenticeship programs, empowering NYers with new skills and resources for free.

Highlight: Let's Green NYC

Let’s Green NYC is NYC Parks's campaign to build on our long-standing pillar of volunteerism and engage a record number of volunteers by the end of 2024. In response to our nation’s epidemic of loneliness, the campaign encourages New Yorkers to get outside into nature and build social connection by giving back to their City. 

Strengthening the Health & Vitality of our Communities

NYC Parks implements physical improvements to key community resources: recreation centers and pools, greenspaces and tree canopy. We also offer expansive programming and events to strengthen the social fabric and vitality of neighborhoods. Our park facilities are essential building blocks in our city’s resurgence. Through strategic prioritization of communities most in need, we collaborate with area residents in the design of their park’s reconstruction, and in the ongoing care of their community’s greenspaces and recreational amenities, thereby enhancing neighborhoods and attracting investment. 

Highlight: Second Shift

Tasked with addressing trash, litter, and graffiti at 100 hot spot sites in 62 parks across the city, this operational deployment works from Thursday – Sunday in the evening hours to create a cleaner city while also fighting the scourge of rodents in New York City. The majority of second shift resources are going to high priority neighborhoods for racial inclusion and equity, which includes COVID hardest hit neighborhoods.

Fortifying the Environmental Health of our City

NYC Parks has a long-standing legacy of ensuring sound stewardship of Parks as a timeless resource. Strengthening our city of forest by planting 15,000 tree plantings in Fiscal Year ’23, prioritizing heat vulnerable communities; implementing an energy reduction plan, moving to the electrification of our fleet, incorporating sustainability into all of our capital projects, expanding greenways to foster non- polluting transportation and restoring and expanding coastal wetlands to mitigate the impacts of flooding are among the many ways we improve NYC’s environmental health and resiliency. 

Highlight: Trails Initiative

NYC Parks and partners will formalize 300 nature trails to connect New Yorkers to our diverse and nourishing 12,000 acres of natural areas, and through dynamic programs, engage them in the care of the natural resources that are essential to the health and resiliency of our city.