Special Announcements

“The Friends of Van Cortlandt Park and the Van Cortlandt Park Conservancy have spent the last two years working to create the Van Cortlandt Park Alliance, a superior stewardship organization to guide the future of Van Cortlandt Park and the implementation of the 2034 Master Plan. For years, the Friends and the Conservancy have worked independently to restore, beautify, and support free programming in Van Cortlandt Park, the crown jewel of the Bronx. Our shared interests have now led us to combine our efforts, and we are working towards announcing the launch of a single united organization in the coming months.” Friends of Van Cortlandt Park and Van Cortlandt Park Conservancy

“The Friends of Van Cortlandt Park board has resoundingly endorsed this approach in several board votes over the past two years in part because of the core foundation of the project—keeping the best parts of FVCP’s programming at the same time adding a more robust focus on fundraising for park maintenance and capital projects in concert with NYC Parks.” The Friends of Van Cortlandt Park’s Board of Directors.

New Beginnings Picnic

Join us on Tuesday, June 11, 2019 as we celebrate the launch of our new organization- the Van Cortlandt Park Alliance- at the New Beginnings Picnic before the New York Philharmonic Concert.  

Attendees will enjoy drinks, dinner and dessert under a well-appointed tent, on the lawn of the Van Cortlandt House Museum starting at 6:30pm. We will be holding a special tour of the House Museum starting at 6pm for our Patron guests. After dinner, guests will enjoy VIP seating at the New York Philharmonic Concert on the Parade Grounds of Van Cortlandt Park.

Special thank you to The Van Cortlandt Committee of the National Society of Colonial Dames in the State of New York for hosting our New Beginnings Picnic.

Visit our New Beginnings Picnic Eventbrite page for more information.

Show Your Support for Daylighting Tibbetts Brook

Water from Van Cortlandt Lake enters the Broadway sewer at a rate of 4 to 5 million gallons of water per day — and that’s on a dry day. This water is then treated – for no reason- at the Wards Island Stormwater Treatment Plant. Often when it rains, the combination of sewage, street runoff and the brook enters the combined sewer, bypassing the treatment plant and flowing directly into the Harlem River. This one Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO), WI-056, connected to the Broadway sewer makes up more than half of the CSO water entering the Harlem River. Daylighting will remove this clean water from the sewer and help to reduce CSO occurrences on the Harlem River and help with flooding issues along Broadway and other areas of the Tibbetts Brook Watershed. 

The Friends of VCP have joined forces with the Bronx Council for Environmental Quality to create a Coalition for the Daylighting of Tibbetts Brook. As of May 2018, Bronx Community Board 7, Bronx Community Board 8, The Bronx is Blooming, City as a Living Lab (CALL), Councilman Andrew Cohen, NYS Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz, Congressman Eliot Engel, Fort Independence Park Neighborhood Association, Kingsbridge Business Improvement District, Kingsbridge Riverdale Van Cortlandt Development Corp., Councilman Mark Levine, NYS Senator Jeffrey Klein, The Natural Areas Conservancy, New Yorkers for Parks, Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition, NYC H2O, Senator Gustavo Rivera, Riverkeeper, S.W.IM. Coalition, the Trust for Public Land, Van Cortlandt Park Conservancy and Wave Hill have signed on.    If your group would like to sign on please email christina@vancortlandt.org .  Individuals may add their support by signing our online Free Tibbetts Brook petition.  Check out this short video from BronxNet to learn more about daylighting of Tibbetts Brook.  Watch this short video produced by Bronx Net to learn more.

Master Plan for Van Cortlandt Park

NYC Parks recently finalized a comprehensive Van Cortlandt Park Master Plan that will guide the restoration of Van Cortlandt Park’s natural beauty and provide solutions for the needs of all neighboring communities. The Master Plan charts clear courses of action to restore and improve this unique property.  The Master Plan is intended to coordinate efforts over the next twenty years between agencies, nonprofit partners, elected officials and community groups to complete capital projects in Van Cortlandt Park.  The Friends of Van Cortlandt Park look forward to helping to implement projects in this plan over the next 20 years.

Watch this Video & Learn about the Friends

Click Here to Watch the Video Directly on YouTube.

Thank you to Next Round Productions for creating this wonderful video for us.  Very special thank you to Partnerships for Parks for helping to fund the video!

The Friends of Van Cortlandt Park are a 501c3 nonprofit organization.
Our EIN is 13-3843182.