THE FARM AT THE JAVITS CENTER, DESIGNED AND OPERATED BY BROOKLYN GRANGE RECEIVES 2022 JEFFREY L. BRUCE AWARD OF EXCELLENCE
LENAPEHOKING; PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA - (OCT 18, 2022): Brooklyn Grange CEO and Co-Founder, Ben Flanner and the Javits Center Director of Sustainability, Jacqueline Tran accepted the 2022 Jeffrey L Bruce Awards of Excellence in the Urban Agriculture category on Tuesday for The Farm at the Javits Center, Designed & Operated by Brooklyn Grange.
The Farm at the Javits Center, Designed & Operated by Brooklyn Grange was announced a winner at the annual Green Roofs for Healthy Cities conference, CitiesAlive, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was presented by Steven Peck, Founder and President of Green Roof for Healthy Cities.
The Farm at the Javits Center was completed in September 2021. Brooklyn Grange worked closely with the Javits Center and its partners to customize designs and operating plans for The Farm to meet the unique needs of the world’s busiest convention center.
The unique and innovative green roof features a one-acre farm, 3,500 sq ft climate controlled greenhouse, and a 10,000 sq ft rooftop orchard and food forest featuring 38 apple and pear trees native to New York State. The farm features over 50 crops and the food forest’s understory includes dozens of perennial plants including gooseberry, asparagus, strawberry, concord grapes, currants, cherry laurel, rhubarb and more. Beneath the rooftop lies a 334,000 gallon underground cistern built to capture and recycle rainwater runoff. All told, this unique and biodiverse green roof is a flourishing habitat for pollinators, insects, birds, and soil microbiome researched by the Javits Center Sustainability team, Brooklyn Grange, and the NYC Audubon Society.
"As an exciting milestone in our sustainability journey, the Farm at the Javits Center enables us to expand how we model sustainable practices and green infrastructure, showing what's possible for large venues and destinations worldwide. What better way to engage our visitors, employees and community in urban agriculture than through roof-to-table experiences that result from a harmonious collaboration of crop planning between the Brooklyn Grange farm crew and our on-site culinary team, Cultivated. With each rooftop harvest, we’re proving the power of sustainability and proud of it.” - Jacqueline Tran, Director of Sustainability at the Javits Center
“The 1-acre farm and food forest that Brooklyn Grange designed and operates for The Javits Center demonstrates the power of urban agriculture to catalyze green roof infrastructure, engage urbanites with nature, and promote the importance of a plant focused diet. This dynamic use of the rooftop creates habitat and forage, provides critical ecosystem services, and produces high quality food for the conference center, not to mention a uniquely educational and inspiring experience for visitors to the conference center. Brooklyn Grange is also proud to apply our years of experience developing rooftop farming best practices via care of the soil, encouraging diversity and habitat among both the ecosystem and soil ecology. The food forest also has great potential to be replicated and evolved elsewhere in cities, including in urban parks.” - Ben Flanner, CEO and Co-Founder of Brooklyn Grange.
Other recipients of the 2022 Jeffrey L. Bruce Awards of Excellence included Recover Green Roofs, Omni Ecosystems, and Parker Plants for projects in the interior green wall, extensive and intensive commercial green roof, and residential green roof categories.
CitiesAlive, a multidisciplinary conference on Green Roofs and Green Walls hosts leading industry professionals and academics working on innovative green roof designs, groundbreaking policies, new research, and products and services in the green infrastructure industry.