Advisor Spotlight: CM Mercedes Narcisse
As the Councilmember who represents Floyd Bennett Field, why is Runway Green an important initiative for you to support?
I am deeply invested in the well-being of my district (District 46) and the surrounding Brooklyn community and a staunch advocate for expanding high-quality learning opportunities for all.
Our city’s young people, especially those from underserved communities, too often face significant barriers to economic advancement, including limited access to high-quality education and workforce training programs.
Runway Green is designed to tackle these challenges head-on, creating a transformational educational ecosystem on 1,300 acres of National Park Service land. This is a groundbreaking initiative that will bring high-quality, experiential, community-based, and career-connected programming to our communities.
What about Runway Green’s partnerships inspire you?
The development of Runway Green is a collaborative effort utilizing a community-driven design process. Design teams composed of community members and diverse stakeholders—including Brooklyn youth—have worked together to ensure the campus reflects the needs and aspirations of our community.
Keeping our communities at the heart of the project is especially important to me, as community voices are integral to the equitable development of a place like Runway Green. Its extensive partnership model, which includes collaborations with nonprofits such as The Billion Oyster Project, Solar One, NY Sun Works, The Campaign Against Sunworks, Jamaica Bay-Rockaway Parks Conservancy, among others, will bring experiential learning opportunities to more than 50,000 NYC public school students.
Runway Green is also working with National Park Services—an unprecedented partnership—to make this possible. This learning ecosystem will have a ripple effect throughout Brooklyn and the five boroughs for generations to come.
What about Runway Green’s location, Floyd Bennett Field, is special to you?
Floyd Bennett Field is home to the first municipal airport in New York City. It sits along Jamaica Bay, featuring grassland, saltmarshes, and tidal mudflats. The site has a long history once on the forefront of technological innovation and rests on ecologically rich parklands.
All of this and more makes Floyd Bennett Field such a unique location for Runway Green. The campus will reinvigorate this historic site and bring unparalleled opportunities to Brooklyn for children and adult learners to address among the world’s most pressing challenges: climate change.
Also, climate change isn’t a future problem—we are already seeing its devastating impacts, which disproportionately impact communities of color, including here in my district and the surrounding neighborhoods. The educational resources Runway Green will provide is vital to address environmental justice issues in our community and beyond.
How do you see programs like Runway Green contributing to long-term solutions for the climate crisis in New York City?
I truly believe that Runway Green will be a catalyst for sustainable change in New York City by equipping young people with the knowledge, skills, and experiences to actively engage in climate solutions. This initiative also has the potential to inspire similar projects throughout the city and create a network of climate-focused education and workforce development across the five boroughs, ensuring we’re preparing the next generation to lead in addressing the climate crisis head-on.
If you could describe what Runway Green will bring to New Yorkers in three words, what would they be?
Opportunity, Innovation, Resilience
What is one job in the climate and sustainability sectors that you want more young people—especially in your district—to know about?
I’d love more young people in my district to learn about careers in urban ecology, especially given the vast amount of park space and waterfront in District 46. Urban ecologists play a critical role in studying and improving the relationships between cities and the natural environment, which is essential for a city like ours that faces unique climate challenges.
For more on Councilmember Mercedes Narcisse