Parks | January 28, 2025

Working at NYRP for 30 Years and Counting

Bette Midler (center) with some of the original NYRP crew in the 1990s, including Edwards Santos (third from the left in the top row).

New York City Parks were in rough condition in the mid-1990s. Suffering from decades of severe divestment and pollution, many parks were littered with trash, abandoned cars, and defunct appliances.

Bette Midler could not accept this severe neglect, and in 1995, she assembled a small team of no-nonsense New Yorkers to clean up the city’s green space starting in Northern Manhattan. Inwood teenager Edwards Santos was one of the first to join her effort.

Having volunteered in parks and gardens around the city since he was nine years old, Edwards was eager to get his hands dirty and help restore Fort Tryon Park, a space he knew well [NYRP concluded our work in Fort Tryon Park in 2015]. Thirty years later, he is now New York Restoration Project’s Manager at Sherman Creek Park, overseeing one of Manhattan’s largest remaining wetlands. This waterfront park is part of the last original remaining salt marsh environment on the entire perimeter of Manhattan and along the entire Harlem River.

Under Edwards’s care, Sherman Creek has transformed from an illegal dumping ground to an inviting and beloved community asset. Today, the park includes Riley-Levin Children’s Garden (a community garden teaching best urban agriculture practices), a native food forest, and a living shoreline to help protect the park from storm surge and sea level rise.

Below, Edwards shares more about his early days of working at NYRP and his lifelong career of making nature more accessible for all New Yorkers.

The following interview has been edited for brevity and clarity. 

person in overalls outside

Edwards helping clean up Northern Manhattan’s Highbridge Park in the mid-1990s.

You were born and raised in New York City. When did you realize working in nature was so important to you?

Edwards Santos: Growing up in the city, there weren’t a lot of places I could go to to play that were considered safe; all we had were abandoned lots. When I was nine years old, I helped start a community garden on my block with my neighbors. From there, I just liked doing the work. I went on to work for Neighborhood Open Space Coalition and the Parks Council to help transform abandoned lots into gardens. I have just always loved working with my hands and being outside.

How did you get involved with NYRP?

ES: I started in October 1995, right after the organization started. I knew NYRP’s first Executive Director, Joseph Pupello, because we had both been part of a garden together. He told me he was working with Bette Midler to clean up Fort Tryon Park and recruited me to help.

We started by picking up trash and dealing with all the overgrowth; we were working on opening the park up and making it safer for people to use. Slowly, we started to see people using the park more and more, but it took a while!

people cleaning up shoreline

Edwards (left) and NYRP crew remove trash along the Harlem River at Sherman Creek Park.

How did your work in Fort Tryon lead you to Highbridge and Sherman Creek Parks, where NYRP works today?

ES: Once the City saw what we were able to do with Fort Tryon, they asked for our help in those parks across the neighborhood. When we arrived in Sherman Creek, we discovered that the area along the shoreline was essentially being used as a dumping site. Beyond that, there was tons of pollution from past industrial activity and combined sewer outflows in the area.

We got to work immediately, and over time, we restored the area to a thriving wetland and haven for a wide variety of wildlife including waterfowl, fish, and oysters. There’s now a pond with a waterfall, a community garden, and an edible food forest in the park.

Most recently in 2020, we also installed a living shoreline along Sherman Creek Park’s waterfront; it includes 500-foot artificial oyster reef and planted marsh grasses to help protect the park from sea level rise and erosion. It also provides more habitat for urban wildlife along the Harlem River.

people carry boats along waterfront

Edwards (left) and the NYRP crew launch boats that they built into the Harlem River.

What have been some of your favorite memories from your time at NYRP?

ES: That’s hard to narrow down! One of them was when we built boats with an organization called Floating the Apple. We built a few 27-foot Whitehall row boats and launched them off of the Sherman Creek Park shoreline. Students from surrounding schools would come and we’d take them onto the Harlem River in the boats.

Another favorite memory would probably be all the ropes work we did. The Northern Manhattan Parks we were cleaning had these sheer rock drop offs where trash would collect because no one could reach it. I know how to do rope work and could train people to basically rappel down into those hard-to-reach places. Rappelling down 20 or 30 feet to pick up trash on the slopes of Fort Tryon… it was pretty fun.

people cleaning up park

Edwards (second from left) in Highbridge Park with some of the original NYRP crew.

You have been making New York City a cleaner and greener place since you were nine years old. Do you have any reflections on all that you have accomplished in that time?

ES: I’m proud to think of all the trees and plants I’ve planted in New York City throughout my life. It’s incredible to be able to walk around the city and see stuff I planted when I was younger. It’s still out here, growing, all these years later.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by New York Restoration Project (@nyrp)

Receive our latest news straight to your inbox once a month, every month.

Subscribe