Birds and Butterflies, Performances and Planting to Mark Local Eco-Celebration
Lower Manhattan will mark Earth Day with celebrations and events on Saturday, April 20. Participation at all the events listed below is free. In the photo above, Peter Hallerman, a sophomore at what was then called Pace College, walked across Park Row into City Hall Park on April 22, 1970, wearing his mother’s Red Cross gas mask from World War Two. He was photographed leaning toward a flower, in what became an iconic image from the first Earth Day.
This year, head to Governors Island for its third annual Earth Day festival from 10am to 3pm. Volunteer projects take place across the island in the morning, from milkweed planting with the Trust for Governors Island horticulture team to invasive species removal with the Bee Conservancy, Fort Jay cleanup with the National Park Service, Lavender Field care with Earth Matter, and other projects. Demonstrations, workshops, performances, tours, and more are scheduled for the afternoon. No reservation is required, but availability is first-come, first-served.
The City Hall Park Conservancy will offer live music (from the Church Street School of Music and Art), coffee, and chess games at the park from 10am to 1pm, along with a chance to plant spring flowers. For more information, please click here.
The Battery Park City Authority is inviting families to participate in activities at the S.T.E.A.M. (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics) Dream open-air fair from 11am to 12:30pm at the Rockefeller Park basketball courts. The goings on will include a performance by “STEM Queen” Jacqueline Means, the founder of the Girls Empowerment STEM Initiative.
At the National Museum of the American Indian (One Bowling Green) visitors on Saturday between 11am and 5pm will encounter the Native Blooms event, and learn about flowering plants indigenous to the Americas, their different uses, and the significance behind them. Activities include sketching flowers, decorating a pot, and planting a sunflower.
Let the kids loose at South Street Seaport to build fantasy structures with recycled moving boxes at Seaport Square, between Piers 16 and 17, from 11am through 2pm. At sea level and aboard the tall ship Wavertree, South Street Seaport Museum will offer activities that explore the effects of ocean acidification on marine life, the role of oyster shells in expanding Manhattan’s cityscape, the impact of storms on New York’s coastlines, and the preservation of New York Harbor.
In Tribeca, the Friends of Duane Park will host a Shred Day from 10am through 2pm. Anyone may bring sensitive paper documents for secure, free, and eco-friendly destruction. This event in Duane Park, at the corner of Duane and Hudson Streets, will also accept gently used sports equipment for donation to Hudson Guild.