This past Sunday, New Yorkers flocked to their snow-covered neighborhood parks, a reminder of the joy and connection these vital spaces foster. Parks are essential infrastructure, making our city stronger, safer, and more livable year-round.
For more than 100 years, New Yorkers for Parks has championed parks and open spaces through coalition-building, advocacy, and research, and this year was no different. Below, take a look at what we accomplished in 2025 alongside park champions in every borough!
And if you want to support this important work in the new year, consider making a gift today.
In 2025...
Parks 2030 set the open space agenda for the incoming mayor
Over the last several months, NY4P gathered sector leaders to develop Parks 2030, our platform for the incoming Mamdani administration.
Parks 2030 addresses longstanding challenges and provides a visionary roadmap for our parks system. The platform’s priorities are funding a robust workforce, implementing innovative funding models, reducing bureaucracy, increasing accessibility citywide, and letting parks lead the way on climate mitigation.
Mayor-elect Mamdani has come out of the gate in support of parks—committing to doubling the parks budget at our April mayoral forum, during multiple debates, and when he announced his transition team in November.
Our just-released “First 100 Days for Parks” agenda outlines early actions the incoming administration can take to reverse historic disinvestment, immediately
Play Fair secured parks staffing gains, prevented deeper funding cuts
Despite City Hall’s repeatedly cutting funding for NYC Parks funding and crippling the agency with a hiring freeze, NY4P and our Play Fair Coalition secured meaningful gains in the City’s FY26 budget.
Most importantly, we advocated for 230 second shift workers to increase maintenance at more than 100 heavily-used parks. We were also successful in restoring 200 positions, including 100 Parks Enforcement Patrol Officers, plus City Parks Workers, Gardeners, and Forestry staff.
Despite these wins, our parks system is still suffering from staffing cuts, with nearly 600 previously cut positions remaining unfilled due to lack of funding and a hiring freeze. We look to the new mayor to shift the direction for the agency.
Community advocacy restored parkland, expedited repairs
Throughout 2025, NY4P partnered with community advocates and local electeds to advance park priorities at the neighborhood level. Two successful campaigns showed how NY4P can lead and support grassroots efforts while telling a broader story about the consequences of citywide disinvestment.
In Red Hook, a public pool had been closed all summer because of a busted pipe—a result of the deferred maintenance that plagues NYC Parks pools and rec centers citywide due to budget constraints. We worked with neighbors to create a “Let Red Hook Swim” petition and amplified the message through relationships with press and electeds.
Attention to the issue pressured the City and NYC Parks to expedite a fix, and the pool was re-opened with three weeks to spare in the swim season.
In Long Island City, the once beloved Queensbridge Baby Park under the Queensboro Bridge had been closed off to the public for decades. NY4P partnered with Councilmember Julie Won and Queensbridge Houses residents on a campaign to “Reclaim Queensbridge Baby Park,” supporting the demand that the land be returned to the public for use as open space as a condition of the OneLIC neighborhood rezoning.
Thanks to our campaign alongside Councilmember Won, 4.5 acres of the former Queensbridge Baby Park was included as future open space in the rezoning agreement, and residents will get their park back.
The Daffodil and Pollinator Project promoted stewardship, biodiversity
This year, alongside 400,000 daffodil bulbs, we distributed thousands of free packets of native wildflower seeds—empowering participants to transform tree pits and community gardens into ecologically resilient habitats for birds, bees, butterflies, and other local pollinators.
Our distributions have become full-on community events, uplifting local stewards, electeds and advocates and engaging neighbors in all five boroughs. 20 million daffodil bulbs, tens of thousands of volunteers, and counting... next year marks the 25th anniversary of this beloved institution!
Research sought open space solutions in park-starved districts
Building upon our Open Space Profiles, this year we identified five community districts severely lacking publicly accessible open space—Bronx CB 5, Brooklyn CB 11 and 17, Manhattan CB 10, and Queens CB 2—and highlighted them in our 2025 Open Space Solutions series. These reports present a map of current and potential public open spaces and list the proposals of local advocates that have a real chance of success.
We’re following up on these reports with a series of Walk & Talks in these and other priority districts. In October, more than 75 people including advocates, community members, and electeds joined us in Mott Haven to see conditions in person and hear from local experts.
Participants connected neighborhood realities to broader system-wide challenges like deferred maintenance, limited access, and uneven investment. The walk highlighted actionable, community-driven
Happy holidays and Happy New Year from all of us at New Yorkers for Parks!
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