Susan Donoghue, NYC Parks Commissioner – The Future of the City’s Green Spaces

During the pandemic, New Yorkers renewed their love affair with the city’s parks. “It made people appreciate the parks,” said Susan Donoghue, Commissioner of the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, during a talk on March 13 at the Museum of the City of New York. “Parks were one of the few safe places that you could be during covid.” Since then, she said, “the volume and the usage has exploded.”

Sean Carlson, host WNYC’s “All Things Considered,” led the discussion with Donoghue whose agency manages 30,000 acres of parkland in the city. With a diverse population inhabiting the five boroughs, Donoghue talked about what the agency does to upgrade and renovate existing areas, while adding new necessities and amenities. 

While “equity” has been eliminated from policy initiatives on the federal level, Donoghue invoked the word frequently while discussing the Park Commission’s focus. The agency uses a tool called the “Vital Parks Explorer” to compare different areas. Donoghue said it helps to identify disadvantaged places where there are high rates of asthma and low canopy cover, for example. “We plant trees in areas where they are most needed,” she added.

The number one request the agent receives is for bathrooms. As a result, a five-year plan that been drawn up to renovate old and install new bathrooms in the parks. Right now, Donoghue said, there are 600 rest stations in the park “more than the number of Starbucks in the whole state of New York.” It costs $3.2 million to install a new bathroom (running water lines is expensive) and more than two million to renovate an old one. But the city is also exploring using pre-fab trailers and a freestanding structure called “the Portland Loo,” which has a smaller footprint and is easier to maintain. 

One billion dollars will be used to upgrade the city’s pools across all the boroughs, she said. Recently $20 million was used to upgrade a pool in Astoria. But with the summer months rapidly approaching, New York, like so many other cities, must deal with a lifeguard shortage. The days of “Baywatch” are over and young people are not as attracted to the job as they once were. “Being a lifeguard is a tough job,” Donoghue admitted. Candidates must go through 40 hours of intensive training. And, obviously, there’s no watching videos or sending texts while on the job. Donoghue hopes that additional incentives – an hourly increase to $22 and a $1,000 retention bonus for those who return the following year – will result in more applicants.

During a Q&A period, Donoghue noted that the agency tries to have a balance between listening to elected officials while also making sure that community groups have a voice. The biggest challenge, she said, is drumming up interest for repairing the park’s aging infrastructure which might not be as “sexy” an initiative as dog runs and playing fields. 

One of the most diligent group of employees the agency employs are goats who are able to navigate to difficult areas in order to eat their way through hard-to-reach vegetation. “Goats are incredibly diligent employees,” she said.

For more information, go to the website for the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation 

Top Bigstock photo: Prospect Park, Brooklyn