Everett Children’s Adventure Garden gets $8.5M revamp

After an 18-month transformation, the NYBG Everett Children’s Adventure Garden (ESAG) welcomes families to explore its grounds again.

The $8.5 million redevelopment is the first upgrade since it opened in 1998. At the heart of the renovation is an effort to widen access to  STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) and environmental education for the hundreds of thousands of children it serves every year. The overhaul is not only physical -- the adventure garden’s range of hands-on programming has been enhanced to reflect “current science pedagogy.”

“I hope it will inspire [young visitors] to be, throughout their lives, protectors of the planet that gives us all life,” J. Barclay Collins II said, chairman of the NYBG board. “A new generation of environmental stewards. Maybe some will become gardeners, maybe some will even become plant scientists.”

The children’s garden welcomes more than 175,000 visitors annually, including upwards of 18,000 Pre-K through 5th grade students on field trips. Nearly 60 percent of those students come from Bronx schools and about 72 percent attend Title I schools, which receive federal funding to support low-income students making the garden a vital educational resource in one of the city’s most under-resourced boroughs.

Plans for a makeover date back to 2010. At the time, the children’s garden had been operating for 12 years and hosted more than 1.5 million visitors, leading to increasingly noticeable wear and tear. The project was set into motion the following year, with focus groups weighing in on a vision for the space. Now, 14 years later, it’s completed.

Among the renovations were enhancements to the indoor facilities, including the Discovery Center, which offers a playroom, greenhouse and lab room where educational workshops are held. The latter now features shelves housing rows of carnivorous plants, a carpet emulating lichen, and lower lab countertops to accommodate learners of all ages and sizes.

Brand new lighting and furniture have been installed throughout the building, including the updated book nook which featured new shelving and rugs scattered with tree-trunk-shaped pillows. In the greenhouse, kids can mist plants with the available spray bottles.

Outdoors, a rainbow xylophone along the main pathway begs to be played. Brand new tree stumps fit for youngsters to sit and play on are scattered throughout the Seedling Circle, in place of the deteriorating ones that once stood there.

“Growing up in what many people call the concrete jungle here in New York City, our kids often miss out on the beautiful nature,” Jennifer Bernstein remarked, NYBG’s CEO and William C. Steer Sr. president. “This garden is going to serve as their oasis.”

Fresh signage with detailed information offers young minds new perspectives on the lush flora, fauna and terrain around them. In the boulder scramble, kids are encouraged to put on their geologist hats and learn about the properties of rocks and identification tips.

One of the most significant additions is the 200-foot-long boardwalk in the Wetland Walk. A gazebo overlooks a pond where snapping turtles swim and box turtles bask, while samples of pond water nearby offer a look into the ecosystems teeming just beneath the surface.

Other changes are more subtle, with some parents telling The Press they expected more from the new look, noting many outdoor features looked the same or similar to the ones prior. 

However, there’s still more to come.  This fall, the garden will debut its Treetop Walk, an ADA-accessible treehouse-like structure designed to offer a one-of-a-kind panoramic view for young explorers.

“This really marks a new phase in the garden’s future,” Assemblyman John Zaccaro Jr. noted. “ It’s teaching us about sustainability and our connection to nature, opening up a world of possibility for the children not just here in the Bronx, but across our city.”