#OnThisDay in 2021, the Trust for Governors Island and @nycmayor announced that Governors Island would remain open to the public year-round for the first time in its history. Since that day, more than two million people have hopped on the ferry and come to the Island to relax in nature, explore unique arts and culture, research climate and the environment, experience the history of New York Harbor with @govislandnps, slide down the longest slide in NYC, go to school, go to work, volunteer, play, explore, and so much more. Thank you to everyone who helps make Governors Island such a wonderful place, every month of the year!

📸: Timothy Schenck, Julienne Schaer, Sean Jamar, Radhika Chalasani

🌧️ UPDATE: @riteofsummernyc's free concert from PUBLIQuartet, originally scheduled for Friday, August 25th, has been moved to Saturday, August 26th, due to forecasted rain. Performances will take place at 1 & 3pm in NOLAN PARK, not Castle Williams. We hope to see you there!
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Join us on Governors Island this Friday, August 25th, for @riteofsummernyc 's annual Rite of Summer Music Festival!

This weekend's performance features @publiq4tet .
The ensemble will perform selections from their GRAMMY-nominated album entitled, What is American, featuring a culmination of styles that trace their roots to American Indigenous and Black music.

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:
✔️This final Rite of Summer show will be presented twice the same day, at 1 and 3pm, and will be held in Castle Williams.

✔️This event is free and open to all, no registration required.

✔️Rain date: Saturday, August 26th.

Visit govisland.org to learn more about Rite of Summer shows and plan your visit!

📸 Lelanie Foster

Visit The Bee Conservancy’s Bee Sanctuary at The Urban Farm on Governors Island, for a fun-filled weekend where you'll learn all about honey and native bees, how these pollinators help sustain our environment, and what you can do to help them thrive!

There are free activities every weekend through the end of October–including Urban Farm Tours, “Meet a Beekeeper” events, native plant celebrations, and pollinator walks. Events are free and open to all, visit the link in bio for dates and registration info.

@the_bee_conservancy is a non-profit organization dedicated to protecting bees, the environment, and securing food justice through community-based education, research, habitat creation, and advocacy.

📸: @the_bee_conservancy

Join us on Governors Island this Saturday, July 22nd, for @riteofsummernyc 's annual Rite of Summer Music Festival!

This weekend's performance features @dublinguitarquartet_ . The Irish ensemble will perform a set that includes works from Bryce Dessner, Marc Mellits, Wojciech Kilar, Gyorgy Ligeti and Philip Glass.

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:
✔️Rite of Summer shows will be presented twice the same day, at 1pm and 3pm, and will be held in Nolan Park.

✔️Feel free to bring a picnic blanket or lawn chair to sit back and enjoy the show!

✔️Rain date: Sunday July 23rd.

Visit govisland.org to learn more about Rite of Summer shows and plan your visit!

📸 David Middleton

Care to share about your experience on Governors Island? We want to hear from you! Fill out our quick and anonymous visitor survey for a chance to win a $50 Amazon gift card!

Visit govisland.com/survey to submit your response.

Purple Coneflower, or Echinacea Purpurea, is a North American-native flowering perennial species of the Asteraceae family. This vibrant purplish-pink petaled flower has a fibrous root system, making it more easily adaptable to garden conditions, as opposed to its long, woody taproot counterparts found in other native species.

If it looks—or sounds—familiar, it's for good reason. Echinacea Purpurea is by far the most popular variety of coneflower, as well as the most commonly used species for herbal remedies. The herb's usages were documented in the National Formulary of the U.S. back in 1913.

For over 400 years, Indigenous tribes such as the Lakota Sioux, Choctaw, Pawnee, Cheyenne, and Comanche have used the herb in different medicinal respects that archaeological digs have dated back to the 17th century.

External application of the herb was used to treat wounds, burns, and insect bites; while chewing of the roots relieved toothache and throat infections. Internal applications were used to treat pains, coughs, and snake bites.

It later piqued the interest of white settlers, who processed the herb into a syrup dubbed "Meyer's Blood Purifier" around 1880, and advertised the cure-all concoction as a remedy for rheumatism, neuralgia, typhoid and rattlesnake bites.

Although its popularity in the U.S. has risen and fallen over the years, Echinacea Purpurea is now sold internationally and ranks as the third most popular herbal supplement—available in many forms ranging tinctures, syrups, teas, powders, to lotions, ointments and salves.

They’re abundant all around Governors Island—find Purple Coneflowers lining the flower beds around Liggett Terrace and throughout the North and South Island Park!

Download @inaturalistorg 's Seek app to track and record the flowers you find!

Calling all horti-curious tree-lovers 🤓🌳🍂

Governors Island is home to over 3,500 trees that make up our unique urban forest— housing various forms of wildlife and providing invaluable ecological benefit to the Island and beyond.

With our TreePlot­ter™ Community Engagement Map, visitors can search trees by their common name, find where on the Island they are located, and learn more about the ecological benefit they provide to our environment!

Access it on govisland.com/nature to learn more!

Visit Governors Island this fall and check out what's currently in bloom!🌸🌼🌹

Pictured above are, in order, Beach Rose, Goldenrod Aster, New England Aster, White Snakeroot, and Garden Dahlia.

All the Island's diverse plantings are thoughtfully selected and cultivated in order to foster an ecological oasis where pollinators and other wildlife are able to thrive! There are blooming beauties everywhere you look, from the historic district to the Hills.

Take a fall trip through the Island and use @iNaturalistorg's Seek app to track what you find.

It's that time again! FAD Market returns to King Ave for another edition of their monthly pop-up on Governors Island! Join us this weekend August 19 + 20, for artisanal food, fashion, and summer fun!

@fadmarket will be on King Ave from 11am-5pm, and runs every third weekend through October. For more information visit govisland.org.

📸: Courtesy of FAD Market

Join the American Indian Community House (AICH) on August 19 + 20, 2023, for their Summer Artists Market!

Learn about American Indian history and AICH's mission, while supporting their artists in residence. The market will take place from 12-4pm in Nolan Park, House #14.

@aichnyc is a community-based organization with a mission to improve and promote the well-being of the American Indian Community and increase the visibility of American Indian cultures through exhibitions, performances, cultural and education programs, and hosting artists in residence. Learn more about AICH at aich.org.

They are one of the #GovIslandArts 2023 Organizations in Residence, which present free exhibits and activities in Nolan Park and Colonels Row from May-October. Learn more about @aichnyc and meet all of this year's organizations at govisland.org/oir

The @jazzagelawnparty returns to Colonels Row on Governors Island this weekend for its weekend #2 of this 16th annual Gatsby-inspired festival of live music, dance, vintage portraiture, and more 1920s-era nostalgic fun! Show up in your Prohibition-era best to enjoy this vintage-inspired party on the Island's serene greenscapes.

ICYMI, @nytimes came to weekend #1 in June to get festival-goers takes on what they like—and don't like—about the Roaring 20s, check it out at the link in our bio and find tickets and event info at jazzagelawnparty.com

📸: Cyrene Renee, model and playwright, by Desiree Rios for The New York Times

Visit Governors Island this weekend for our monthly edition of THIRD Saturdays!

Stroll through the historic houses of Nolan Park and Colonels Row and get to know our 2023 #GovIslandArts Organizations in Residence while enjoying dozens of free arts, cultural, educational, and environmental workshops & activities! This month, we've got podcasting, film screenings, artist talks, exhibition openings, a guided bird outing, and so much more. Link in bio for a full list of this weekend's activities

📸 (L to R): @nycaudubon, @aichnyc by Julienne Schaer, @escapingtimenyc, & @flux_factory

Helianthus Salicifolius, or Willow-Leaved Sunflower, is a bright yellow clump-forming North American perennial, donning upright stems flanked with narrow, arching, willow-like leaves, and a deep chocolate brown-colored center.

These bright blossoms are attractive to butterflies and other insect pollinators. Seen pictured above enjoying some nectar is a Hover-fly—who get their namesake from the ability to remain nearly motionless while in flight. The adults are also known as Flower-flies, for they are commonly found hovering in and around flowers.

Catch these yellow-petaled beauties and their many pollinators blooming into late October in The Hills and in other flowerbeds around Governors Island.

Download the @iNaturalist app to identify and track what you find!

📸 @loganrf

Apply by November 3, 2023, to join the Trust for Governors Island’s seasonal Organizations in Residence program for the 2024 season! Presented through #GovIslandArts, the Organizations in Residence program offers an exciting opportunity for New York-based arts, cultural, educational, and environmental nonprofits to share their work with Governors Island visitors and all New Yorkers and advance their missions in a setting unlike anywhere else in NYC.

Each year, the seasonal Organizations in Residence join a collaborative Island community of leading cultural groups from across New York, who present programs in the fields of visual and performing arts, history, architecture and design, climate change, ecology, sustainability, and more.

Here’s what you need to know:
🏠 Proposals due November 3, 2023, residency dates are May-October 2024
🏠 Resident organizations will devise seasonal programming that is free and open to the public—including but not limited to exhibitions, events, workshops, and artist residencies
🏠 Resident organizations receive free space in the Island’s historic former military houses
🏠 Applications are OPEN online at govisland.org/permits

Clockwise from top left: @escapingtimenyc, @girlsclubny, @harvestworks, @taac2014, @nylaat_org, #GovIslandArts House Fest, @newartdealers, @koda.lab + @residencyunlimited

📸: Sean Jamar

Visit the Institute for Public Architecture (IPA) on Governors Island for their 2023 Summer Residency Exhibition at the Block House in Nolan Park House 9.

The IPA's six Fellows have been living on the Island, working on a series of design projects ranging across disciplines including art, architecture, urban design, illustration, and history & design education.

Projects include a formal exploration of seeds as physical and symbolic material, a publicly accessible creative project examining the use of Robert Smithson’s decaying trees, an investigation of the corridor and its relation to the room, an exploration of how to reclaim public spaces for community well-being and belonging, research of societal beautification and personal mindfulness, and an architectural graphic novel.

The exhibition will be on view Saturdays and Sundays from 12-4pm through September 24th in Nolan Park.

@the_iparch is part of our growing community of year-round tenants here on the Island. Utilizing design to challenge social and physical inequities in the city, their collaborative process involves a place-based design residency and related public programming, developed to engage specialists in the field and members of the public alike.

To learn more about the IPA and the work they do visit
the-ipa.org

Queen Anne's Lace, or Daucus Carota, is a flowering biennial of the Apiaceae (Carrot) family. This dense, powdery white wildflower has branching stems, and is composed of hundreds of tiny 5-petaled flowers that are arranged in compound umbels. The flower cluster often has a tiny dark purple floret near the center.

Legend has it that this flower gets its common name from Queen Anne, who was said to be well-versed in lacemaking. As a non-native plant, Daucus Carota originated from Europe and Southwest Asia, and was later brought to North America as a medicinal herb. Despite being a non-native species, it is not listed on the Federal Noxious Weed List, and does not post threat to other native species of plants.

Its plentiful nectar and pollen attract bees, wasps, flies and beetles. Blooming from May into October, find Queen Annes Lace before its peak comes to an end in Nolan Park, Liggett Terrace and various other flower beds throughout the Island!

Download @inaturalist 's Seek app, to track and record the flowers you find!

The Cardinal Flower, or Lobelia Cardinalis, is an herbaceous, flowering perennial in the Bellflower, or Campanulaece family.

Named after the striking red color of a Roman Catholic Cardinal's robe, these North, South, and Central American native plants can grow between two to five feet tall! Its flowers are deeply five-lobed, and display the “lip” petal characteristic near the opening of the flower that is unique to the varieties and cultivars of this species.

The Cardinal flower has been prized by many Indigenous tribes for its plethora of medicinal and ceremonial uses. The Delaware would use root infusions of the plant to treat typhoid. The Cherokee and Zuni would use crushed flowers and roots topically to relieve headache, heal sores, rheumatism, and swelling.

Alternatively, the Pawnee would use flowers and roots in love charms, while the Meshwaki would utilize the plant as a ceremonial tobacco, throwing it to the wind to ward off storms.

Although this plant has been historically used as medicinal, cardinal flowers contain a number of toxic alkaloids such as lobeline, and can be harmful when ingested in large quantities.

Given the height and intricacy of these gorgeous bright red flowers, insects have hard time navigating their length𑁋making hummingbirds it’s number one pollinator. Find these bright red long-stemmed beauties by the Admiral's House in Nolan Park, and in Hammock Grove.

Download the @inaturalistorg app to track how different many species of flora and fauna you can find on the Island!

Goldenrod, or Solidago, is an herbaceous perennial in the Aster family with up to 120 species. The species pictured above is called Solidago Canadensis.

Upon closer inspection, these bright yellow flowers can have up to 350 small flower heads per branch stem! While mostly native to North America, there are some species native to Mexico, South America and Eurasia.

Although commonly confused with ragweed, Goldenrods are not allergenic, and have been traditionally used by many Indigenous populations for their healing properties–including antifungal, diuretic, diaphoretic, anti-inflammatory, expectorant, astringent, antiseptic, and carminative.

Depending on the species, Goldenrod can be found blooming in mid to late summer, and early fall. Its plentiful nectar and seeds attract bees, wasps, butterflies, and birds𑁋all helping support a thriving ecosystem of wildlife on Governors Island. Find these early blooming bright yellow cultivars near the grills at Nolan Park, in Hammock Grove, and on Discovery Hill, and make sure to visit in the fall for the rest of Goldenrod blooming season.

Download the iNaturalist app to track how many species you can find!

Visit Governors Island to explore “ReImagining Conservation: From the Ground Up,” on view at Swale House (Nolan Park Building 11) Friday-Sunday through November 5, 2023!

These exhibitions, presented by Creature Conserve, Swale, and NYC Urban Soils Institute, focus on the role healthy soil plays in supporting a healthy ecosystem, which in turn supports healthy animals and healthy people. The artworks included in this exhibition present multiple lenses for viewing our relationship with soils, and prompt the viewer to ask: What if we imagine human-animal-soil interactions in ways that support healthier lives for all species?

Comprised of works from 21 artists, 10 writers, and 2 performers from five countries: Adira Andlay, Angela Baron, Catherine Fletcher, Catherine Raven, Chloe Bulpin, Derek Russell, Diana Renn, Donica Larade, Eileen Holland, Elizabeth Ellenwood, Emilie Houssart, Hayley Cranberry Small, Hernán Jourdan, J. B. Moonstar, Jeanne Dodds, Jenn Houle, Juliana Roth, Kate Amrine, Kate Douglas, Lee Fearnside, Lisa Schnell, Madison Woods, Mary Arnold, Mrinmayi Dalvi, N Nitha Fathima, Pamela Casper, Pooja Venkatachalam Kumar, Rachel Frank, Renee Crowley, Stephanie Garon, Susan Tacent, Uma Sharma, & Uttama Patel.

Follow @creatureconserve for artist features, exhibit walk throughs, and behind the scenes peeks into the process of artists-in-residence throughout the course of the exhibition.

@urbansoilsmania @project_soils_usi @swalenyc

@swalenyc is one of the 2023 #GovIslandArts Organizations in Residence, presenting free exhibits and activities in and around the Island’s historic houses weekends through the end of October. Learn more and explore all of the organizations at govisland.org/oir

Cover Artwork: Madison Woods, "Destination Unknown."
Watercolors from Ozark pigments, 2019
📸 courtesy of @creatureconserve

Interested in learning more about insects' afterhours activity on Governors Island? 🦟🐛

Join the Trust for Governors Island horticulture team and our partner insect ecologists for Light Trapping—a special community science event utilizing ultraviolet light to attract and inspect night-flying creatures! Light trap­ping is an effec­tive way to learn about and iden­ti­fy insects that are not as active dur­ing the day, and will help contribute to the ecological knowledge of the Island. Insects will be safely and humanely caught, observed, and released.

Participants will be guided through specimen identification and utilize the @iNaturalist app to identify and catalog findings.

WHAT TO KNOW:
✔️This event is being held on Monday, October 2, 2023 from 6-9pm.
✔️Space is extremely limited, and registration is required to join this free event—link in bio! Registration includes ferry tickets, each guest must plan to take the 5:45pm ferry from 10 South Street.
✔️This tour will meet at Soissons Landing.