Migratory birds can find an urban refuge right in the middle of Broadway, from West 60th to 168th streets.
Miniature parks with thickets of woodland serve as an unlikely habitat for wildlife, with the rumble of the subway below and traffic on both sides. The islands, which are situated between Central, Riverside and Morningside parks, are an ideal rest stop for birds to forage and gather nesting materials.
The Broadway Mall Association, the group that manages most of these spaces, is in the midst of a nearly $2 million restoration to make the patches of greenery more attractive to animals and insects.
As part of the project, the association has enlisted the NYC Bird Alliance to conduct surveys tracking the types of birds chirping in the green strips. The group has already found that upgraded greenery is attracting more birds, including familiar sights like pigeons, house sparrows, European starlings and robins — and more exotic species like warblers, orioles and tanagers making pit stops on their journeys stretching thousands of miles.
“The intention is to create a habitat for endangered pollinator species and bird species ... that have very minimal habitat in Manhattan,” said Ian Olsen, director of horticulture at the Broadway Mall Association. “The idea is that the malls serve as a corridor for species to use, so the biodiversity survey is currently giving us proof that these spaces are used as feeding sites, as nesting sites for bird species that we want to conserve.”
The data will guide the restoration, which involves replacing nonnative plants like English ivy with native species, such as witchhazel and ferns.
One of the restored medians, which is attracting an abundance of birds.
The Broadway malls were built above the subways in 1904. After decades of neglect, a group of neighborhood volunteers formed the Broadway Mall Association in the 1970s to care for the 5.5 miles of greenery.
“New York City is one of the best places in the United States for birdwatching, and that's because several hundred species of migratory birds are coming through here each spring and fall, and they get funneled into our little green oasis of parks,” said Tod Winston, urban biodiversity specialist at the NYC Bird Alliance.
The bird alliance estimated that about 25 million birds pass through New York City during the migration season along the Atlantic flyway, which stretches from South America to Greenland.
To assess the importance of the westside medians, Winston and his team count birds for five minutes. They train their binoculars on trees overhead and listen intently to identify some avians by their songs. The survey takes note of birds that fly overhead or perch outside the median on street trees and buildings.
“Many songbirds migrate at night and they've flown all night, some of them over the ocean for several days, and they see these little green spots in New York City and come down here to rest and refuel,” Winston said.
The ultimate goal of the Broadway Mall Association is to restore all 83 strips. The group expects to complete improvements on 22 medians by 2028.
The greenspaces at West 74th and 75th streets will be completed by the end of this month. Four completed miniparks at West 73rd, 83rd, 150th and 164th streets already attract many more birds than others.
“When birds go into a part of the city without a park, where there's no insects and places for them to rest, they could die of starvation or exhaustion because they've been flying for miles,” said Myles Davis, senior manager of green infrastructure at the NYC Bird Alliance.
The facelift includes cultivating six feet of soil, which is so packed that it’s difficult for precipitation, seeds and insects to penetrate. The plan involves restoring the understory of bushes and native grasses and flowers, as well as the overstory of trees, which are mostly oaks. Oaks provide perches and cool shelter — and a caterpillar buffet for birds.
Tod Winston strolls through one of the Broadway medians that has not yet been upgraded.
Each restored mall has plants including goldenrod, blue and white asters, gum trees, hop-hornbeam trees, pawpaw trees and a variety of native grasses, like switch and purple love.
“We want to understand what's the conservation impact of doing this, and a great way to understand that is by looking at what birds are using [the Broadway malls] because that's an indicator of ecosystem health and habitat health,” Davis said. “It's a great opportunity for us to actually look at this level of green space, the smallest unit of green space you can really have at street level, and understand how important that is for birds.”
Those behind the effort said the biggest challenge for the Broadway microhabitats is litter. According to the Broadway Mall Association, staff fill two large contractor bags with discarded plastic bottles, alcohol containers, wrappers and take-out boxes in a single day at just one mall.
“Sometimes it's used as a dumping site for larger objects or a cleanout of somebody's apartment,” Olsen said. “There's a great diversity in the type of trash that we get.”
Winston said renovated medians benefit residents through more shade from healthy trees. The medians are also sponges for stormwater and reduce flooding.
“They are the hardest-working parks in New York City,“ said Andrew Genn, executive director of the Broadway Mall Association. “They make Manhattan more habitable for humans and for animals.”
