HarborLAB’s volunteers wish you and your loved ones a safe, peaceful, and hopeful holiday season. Hope helps us look past the pandemic, and we ask you to contribute to HarborLAB’s role in building that great future. With our Hunters Point South boathouse in Gotham Organization’s new development just over the horizon and calls for our services throughout the NYC metropolitan area, we need to purchase boats, safety gear, educational materials, and secure storage to meet these needs.

Please consider donating to HarborLAB here: https://harborlab.org/donateorsponsor/

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to email us at support@harborlab.org.

HarborLAB volunteers caring for White Island and South Brother Island.

HarborLAB has refocused on environmental stewardship and online education during the pandemic because public paddling programs aren’t safe. This summer and autumn we partnered with the Natural Resources Group of the NYC Department of Parks and Recreation and Riverkeeper to clear shorelines of plastics and invasive plants, and seed them with native species on White Island in Brooklyn, South Brother Island in the Bronx, and Newtown Creek in LIC, Queens. We’re now gathering seeds to make seedballs to continue strengthening coasts and habitats in 2021. Each week from May to October we sampled water from Gantry Plaza State Park and the Hunters Point South Boat Launch at 2nd Street for our partners at the NYC Watertrail Association to test for sewage bacteria. At Vernon Boulevard on Newtown Creek our native garden produced milkweed, goldenrod, and sunflowers for butterflies and other essential pollinators, and we transferred oysters that were struggling with pollution to a Hudson River site in West Harlem.

In 2021 we’ll continue this work, expand upon it, and gradually and safely reach out to include the general public, environmental groups, and college students in our field work and tours, following COVID-19 protocols. 

HarborLAB’s volunteers have provided free educational and recreational programs since 2012, often working on rough and rocky beaches in areas lacking boathouses. In addition to our open paddles at the Gantry Plaza State Park dock, we’ve served thousands at locations as diverse as under the Brooklyn Bridge in Manhattan, northern Queens at Little Bay Park and MacNeil Park, Coney Island Creek at Kaiser Park, and Willow Lake in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park. Our boats have taken a beating, so for safety’s sake we need to replace a number of them. The pandemic has also made our Vernon Boulevard dead end at Newtown Creek a more desolate and dangerous place, with recent assaults gaining media attention. A few of our boats and gear items have been stolen and damaged by trespassers. Our replacement boats will not go to this site, but rather be stored securely until we move into the Hunters Point South Boathouse and begin programming in coordination with Gotham Organization, RiseBoro, and other community partners. 

Thank you again for your participation in HarborLAB programs, and we hope you can support our renewed growth for a happier era! 

Sincerely,

Erik Baard
Executive Director
HarborLAB