Working at NYRP Since 2002

Andrew Stewart was already an experienced carpenter when he joined New York Restoration Project in the early 2000s. He found his woodworking love in high school and put it to use in several New York City community gardens before joining NYRP in 2002.

In the twenty three years since, Andrew has helped build essential infrastructure for hundreds of local green spaces. The raised beds, shade structures, and pergolas among many other constructions he has built have helped gardens flourish across the city.

Andrew’s colleagues describe him as kind, patient, friendly, funny, hard working, creative, and extremely skilled. They call him “a true craftsman who freely shares his knowledge and expertise… who can take ideas and aspirations of garden groups and translate them into the hardscapes, installations, and garden infrastructure that make NYRP green spaces so special.” “He’s really one of the backbones we have here at NYRP,” says a colleague. “His work supports NYRP’s mission every day.”

Below, Andrew reflects on his experience of helping further NYRP’s mission of making nature more accessible to all New Yorkers.

The following interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

How did you first get involved with New York Restoration Project? 

Andrew Stewart: Before NYRP, I worked for the Horticultural Society of New York as a carpenter and horticulturalist (we did some projects with NYRP along the Harlem River). One of my friends who used to work at NYRP encouraged me to apply when the organization was looking for a carpenter. I was hired in March 2002 and have been here ever since. 

What sparked your interest in carpentry? 

AS: It was the woodshop class I had in high school. I had a great teacher named Scott who was very fundamental in my learning about power tools like the table saw, jigsaw, bandsaw, and others.

I used to make wooden plaques and speaker boxes in woodshop class and sell them to the other students; my love for woodworking really took off from there. A woman named Kate liked my work and recruited me to work for the Horticultural Society, where I eventually joined and built two outdoor classrooms made of sustainably harvested redwood. We actually won awards from Architectural Digest for those classrooms!  

How have you used your carpentry skills to build and transform gardens with NYRP? 

AS: At NYRP, we have our community gardens that we own and maintain, but then we also have our Gardens for the City gardens. The Gardens for the City gardens are on partner properties where we’ve built at community centers, schools, and other publicly accessible spaces. We’ll go there and, in a few days, we’ll transform an underutilized space into a garden. It’s amazing, the before and after pictures are so dramatic!

A lot of the communities that we have gardens in and work in are low-income communities; they’re underserved in a lot of ways. Bringing green spaces to those communities makes a huge impact. I love being part of the work NYRP does and seeing how it affects these neighborhoods. 

What’s one of your favorite memories at NYRP? 

AS: Man, I have so many! I remember one time we built a garden in Downtown Brooklyn at the Brooklyn Public Library Pacific Branch (this was actually one of the gardens I worked on while at the Horticultural Society, too). But with NYRP, we constructed a whole stage there and spruced up the space with plants and everything. I remember when we showed it to the people at the library, everyone was so happy with the work that they started crying! That was one of my best memories; I’ll never forget that day. 

Why is having these gardens so important to people? 

AS: Because living in a city, there’s not a lot of green space. A lot of kids don’t get to be around nature, and it’s hard for them to understand how big a role it plays in our lives and our wellbeing. There’s a lot of things that we don’t get to experience living in a city, so when we do get it, we appreciate it. I think that when NYRP builds these gardens and people are so thankful, it’s because they want green space without having to get on a bus or a train. They can just walk down the block and be in nature, and that makes such a difference in their lives. 

This year, DeKalb branch of the Brooklyn Public Library is one of NYRP’s Gardens for the City partners. What was it like for you to return to the DeKalb Library Garden you helped build in the 1990s? 

AS: It was a great full circle moment. In the nineties, with the Horticultural Society, we built a pergola there out of redwood. And it’s still there, and it’s still strong! When we first planted the garden, all the birch trees were super small, about 5 feet tall. And now, they’re huge. The fact that we got to go in there and spruce it up was a great bookend to everything.  

What has been the best part of working at NYRP? 

AS: I love the people here and the work that we do. The people I work with at NYRP, they’re first-class people.  

I am also so proud of the spaces we work in and the community we have. To see people’s reactions to the gardens we’ve built has been very touching and heartwarming. A lot of people go to work and don’t get to see who they’re impacting. I get to see firsthand how my work affects the community and how appreciative everyone is of what we’re doing. Driving past the gardens with my kids, I get to be like, “Look at that garden! That’s one of our gardens!” and they’re like, “Oh, wow!” — it’s a great feeling.