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Brooklyn Grange, the rooftop farming operation that launched in Long Island City a couple years ago, celebrated its first harvest at its new site, a 43,000 square-foot rooftop farm in Brooklyn -- now the largest such farm in NYC. Located in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, the rooftop farm was financed in part by a $592,730 grant from the DEP's Green Infrastructure Grant Program. Mayor......read more
A few years ago, a sprawling urban farm was started in one of the most improbable places of all: Queens, NY. On top of the mammoth Standard Motor Products Building, ground broke and an acre was cultivated using over a million pounds of soil to supply local restaurants, shops and foodies with fresh, organic produce. As the last days of the summer season loomed, I ventured out to Brooklyn......read more
If you're reading this, you're probably already familiar with Brooklyn Grange (if not, start here then go here). In Brooklyn Farmer, filmmaker Michael Tyburski follows the story of a small group of dedicated staff and volunteers, who turned unused space in the city into the world's biggest rooftop farm, producing over 120,000 pounds of food for the local community. Today the farm is looking to......read more
The murky depths of Brooklyn's highly polluted Gowanus Canal conceal the remains of its industrial past. Now, having recently been listed on the Environmental Protection Agency's Superfund National Priorities List, it looks to a clean future ahead. The best part? Restoring the canal will be paid for by polluters, not taxpayers....read more
New York's Macro-Sea invades underused urban spaces and reenergizes them with creative projects and happenings. Like Glassphemy!, a 20x30-foot "visceral and psychological recycling center" erected in a pre-gentrified lot on the Gowanus Canal. In a violently fun take on recycling, participants were invited in the structure to smash empty beer bottles against the bulletproof glass. The shattered......read more
Brooklyn's Big Sue, LLC is a veteran of New York City's sustainable building scene. In this episode of Brooklyn Informed, we talk to Big Sue partner Susan Boyle about one of the company's cooler projects: a Prospect Heights brewery icehouse they bought in 2004 and converted into a six-unit residential building. The structure is an excellent portrait of sustainable construction, with two green......read more
Our good friend Isa Brito is the herbalist behind Isa's Restoratives, a line of wildcrafted, organic concoctions that we fully endorse (hot tip: try the Blue Chamomile Face Cream ). In this episode of Gardens NYC, we explore the Williamsburg garden where the lives of Isa's tinctures begin. But healing plants aren't the garden's only residents; Isa is down with weeds as well.......read more
Food doesn't get any more local than when you can plant, pick, cook, and eat it all within a space of about five feet. That's the exactly the situation that building manager Peter Malerba finds himself in. The longtime Brooklyn resident takes advantage of having open access to a vast rooftop by growing a variety of organic delights every summer. But like a good Brooklynite, Malerba......read more
This week on Brooklyn Informed, the BKI team hooks up with Brad Estabrooke, owner and founder of the Breuckelen Distilling Company in Sunset Park. The 31 year-old native of Maine bailed on a career on Wall Street to open the small-scale distillery near the Gowanus waterfront, where he crafts farm-to-bar gin from organic raw ingredients sourced around New York state. With a grain mill, a......read more
Compositions or decompositions? You be the judge. Either way, Andrew Casner's compost paintings are nothing if not captivating. In this episode of BKI, the Brooklyn resident and urban farmer discusses his unusual artistic practice, which involves placing a canvas under a compost pile, then uncovering it a month later to reveal an abstract, agrarian piece of art. Originally inspired by the......read more
