It’s Our Park: 25 Years of Communities in Action

Many of New York City’s local parks are sustained by community groups who volunteer to care for them. Dating back to the fiscal crisis of the 1970s, this grassroots activism transformed parks that were once neglected and dangerous into flourishing public spaces. Founded in 1995, Partnerships for Parks (PfP) was created to bring communities together with city government and private resources to grow this movement, which is as critical now as it was then. An innovative, joint program of City Parks Foundation and NYC Parks, PfP is in a unique position to mobilize partners across public and private sectors to champion this work.

This online exhibition celebrates the program’s 25 years of dedicated public service by exploring PfP’s rich network. Sourced directly from community leaders, staff, and NYC Parks’ archives, the exhibition uses photography to celebrate PfP’s community partners, telling their stories through their eyes, and showing the transformation possible when people come together in their neighborhood parks to effect change.

Organized into six sections, the collection explains how New Yorkers use their public resources: engaging their neighborhood residents and businesses in support of the local green space; caring for parks and green spaces; using and enjoying parks and gardens through cultural programming, educational activities, physical fitness, or just relaxing on a bench; and using parks — which serve as a neighborhood’s backyard — to create true community in a dynamic yet sometimes daunting city. The final section of the exhibit shows some of the history of our parks.

There are hundreds of community park groups and thousands of volunteers who help keep our parks and green spaces welcoming, thriving, and active. While we are only able to showcase a few here, we hope you take the time to learn more by connecting with us.

Please note: This exhibition was scheduled to be on display at the Arsenal Gallery in Central Park; however, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Arsenal Gallery is closed until further notice and the gallery has temporarily moved online.

Google Tours

Get an in-depth view of the broad scope of work accomplished by Partnerships for Parks over its 25 year history. Through text, photos, and videos you will travel to different neighborhoods and learn how PfP and its partners have helped shape the city by turning parks into thriving community spaces.

Clicking on these links will redirect you to Google Tours website

Catalyst

Community Parks Initiative

Special Initiatives

It's My Park

link to Technical Assistance Google Tour

Group Development and Support

Engage

The first step in sustaining a public green space is to engage people. PfP activates and supports a network of community members and connects them with both public and private resources. Working on every level from the ground up, we reach out to and build bridges between communities, grassroots groups, peer organizations, elected officials, and city agencies. We work side-by-side with stakeholders to organize events in which we can reach broad swaths of the community to get them involved in their local park. Our staff are on the ground in communities across the city every day, building and strengthening these networks.

Through initiatives such as CPI (Community Parks Initiative) — a groundbreaking NYC Parks plan prioritizing City investment in parks in historically under-served neighborhoods that have the greatest needs — and the support of City Parks Foundation, PfP brings people into parks and focuses on gathering community input through “visioning sessions” to inform park renovations and programs. In this way, PfP works to create space within City government for community input, changing systems so decision-making is something that happens with people and not to people.

Teens gather together to sketch on paper what they would like to see in their park

2016, Leenda Bonilla/Partnerships for Parks

Youth sketch out the future of Barretto Point Park to inform its redesign, The Point

* Click on left image to zoom in
* Click a thumbnail below to view/change image on the left

A group of seniors huddle around a table to talk about their park

A constituent converses with staff at a table with a giant poster with action words like people, want, and get

A sketch of park with writings of what amenities should go where

Community members gather at a table to look at printed out black and white images of their park

A council member, kids, and community members gather around a kid who addresses the press about the creek

Community members hold up a sign that reads Bushwick Inlet Park is missing its core

Paper wish lanterns in various colors hang from a clothes line in a park

Kids help hold up a giant list that addresses physical assets, economic assets, and stories about their neighborhood and park

A member of the NYPD Community Affairs unit high fives with a park leader

Signs that read Dear Tompkinsville Park are arranged on a clothes line along the park perimeter. Peace signs are scattered on the lawn

Care

Once a network of community members is formed around a local green space, we get to work. Through It’s My Park, our signature service program, we engage tens of thousands of volunteers across the city annually, from grassroots groups and community-based organizations to schools, non-profits, and businesses. We provide tools and materials and help coordinate hands-on projects that help clean, paint, plant, and beautify hundreds of local parks each year. It’s My Park helps connect volunteers to active community stewardship organizations and raises the profile of New York City’s parks as centers for community life.

2016, Leenda Bonilla/Partnerships for Parks

Loving the Bronx plant at St. James Playground on Earth Day

* Click on left image to zoom in
* Click a thumbnail below to view/change image on the left

Kids help mulch a path, one carries the wheelbarrow while the others rake and shovel

Community members plant flowers in a tree bed

A woman and a kid mulch a tree in the park

A family tends to plants near a pond in the park

A community member cleans the spray shower area in the playground

Kids tend to the daffodils plant around a tree

Kids and community members join an artist to paint a mural

Paint supplies and a wet paint sign are scattered in a lawn area for use

community members use grabbing sticks to pick up trash along a beach

Kids wearing masks pose at a community event

Two volunteers embrace each other in the park

A girl wearing an It's My Park tshirt poses for a photo in front of the Friends of Raimonda Park sign

Persevere

Motivating volunteers and sustaining that momentum is an ongoing challenge. Many communities are faced with significant barriers, including inequitable and historically under-resourced green spaces and a high concentration of poverty. Volunteering and keeping a community group together in these circumstances is difficult, as individuals juggle multiple work, family, and personal obligations. The physical work of cleaning, sweeping, raking, removing trash, digging, planting, and painting while braving brutally hot summers or intensely cold winters, makes participation harder. Natural and environmental disasters — the COVID-19 pandemic, Superstorm Sandy, climate change, and illegal dumping, to name just a few — can be demoralizing, and frustrate and complicate volunteer efforts. What’s more, change is slow. Community groups may spend many months or years organizing and advocating for improvements to their parks before their voices are heard and needed changes are made. Throughout it all, PfP is there to help facilitate this work and make sure our communities endure and continue to provide support to one another.

A community member holds up a sign that reads hashtag Loving the Bronx as others pose around a bench painted in the red, black, and green Pan African colors

2020, Nilka Martell

Loving the Bronx supporting Black Lives Matter and repainting park benches using Pan-African colors during the COVID-19 pandemic

* Click on left image to zoom in
* Click a thumbnail below to view/change image on the left

A teen volunteer holds up a shoe found while volunteering in the park

A display of bags of leaves that were raked up, the letters spelled out on the bags read Loving The Bronx

Community members pull out plastic from between the rocks at a beach

Community members pose next to bags of trash picked up

Kids and other community members care for a tree along a park path next to the subway station

Two people carry out shopping carts from the water

A board with sticky notes of medium and long term goals for the park

Community members hold up a sign that reads quinceanera, hike the heights 15, hiking toward an equitable society

Plants growing near the old concrete plant in the park

Community members pose with a dog in a circle that reads Friends of Kivlehan

Enjoy

Never in our 25-year history have parks played a more important role in our city in supporting residents’ physical and emotional well-being as during the recent pandemic. Our city’s parks encourage active and healthy lifestyles, facilitate social engagement, help neighbors celebrate their cultural heritage, and provide opportunities for quiet reflection. PfP works alongside community groups and peer organizations to plan programming that brings those parks to life.

Kids play with balls and other play equipment on the playground

2015, Leenda Bonilla/Partnerships for Parks

A happy moment at the Community Parks Initiative (CPI) launch at Martin Luther King, Jr. Playground

* Click on left image to zoom in
* Click a thumbnail below to view/change image on the left

Kids play around the sculpture in the park

Kids enjoy getting splashed with water at the spray showers in the park

Performers gather around a dancer putting on a show

Kids gather around the table to watch the watermelon eating contest

Kids hop along in a sack race in the park

Kids of the Police Athletic League enjoy crafts while sitting in the park

A kid is assisted with using an adaptive bike on the course in the park

Kids play basketball at a park that features a beautiful view of the east river and the skyscrapers in Manhattan

Community members take off their shoes and stop on mats on the lawn to work out

Kids play and laugh in a pile of leaves during the fall

Community members wearing Santa hats share a laugh in the park

Community members challenge each other to a game of checkers and the chess and checkers table in the park

Neighbors settle in for a performance at the waterfront of the park which features a beautiful view of the Whitestone bridge at Sunset

The audience enjoys a show of swing dancing outdoors in the park

Folks enjoy the sunset while sitting at the shorefront of the park which features a view of the east river and the Empire State Building across the way

Community

Parks strengthen local communities, connecting people of all ages and backgrounds. This section highlights some of the special moments of joy with family, friends, loved ones, and nature.