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Brooklyn Greenway Initiative built the Naval Cemetery Landscape on the site of the former Naval Hospital Cemetery at the Brooklyn Navy Yard as a place for retreat and remembrance while honoring its rich layers of natural and cultural history. This site was designed as a native plant meadow and pollinator habitat, and provides visitors with an escape from urban life.
Please note that bike and scooter riding is not permitted at the NCL. As our site is a wildlife habitat, dogs are also not permitted on our grounds.
Learn about upcoming events at the Naval Cemetery Landscape
Pick up a self guided tour brochure at our entrance to learn more about our native meadow, the history of the NCL, and our site’s features. Follow up with our staff with your questions and observations!
Find the Nature Sacred Bench and journal behind our Sacred Grove and take a moment to sit, breathe, be present, and enjoy space in nature. Feel free to record your thoughts, observations, and reflections in the journal, or to explore others’ musings as you relax in the shade of our native trees.
The Naval Cemetery Landscape is excited to partner with Brooklyn Book Bodega on their mission to ensure that all children have access to and ownership of books. We invite you to come out to the NCL with your children this summer to pick up a free nature book from our bookshelf (1 per child). Follow this link to find reading tips from Brooklyn Book Bodega for children of all ages!
Bring a part of the NCL home by growing flowers such as purple coneflower, plains coreopsis, black-eyed Susan, and milkweed in your own garden or container. Stop by the NCL and pick up a native, pollinator-friendly wildflower seed packet that you can take home and plant. The seed mix includes native annual and perennial wildflower seeds that are easy to grow and thrive in the Northeast.
The Naval Cemetery Landscape is officially recognized as a Monarch Waystation by Monarch Watch, due to the amount of nectar rich annuals and milkweed varieties planted in the meadow. Monarch butterflies are in decline, due mostly to the lack of habitat and foraging resources along their migration routes. Pick up a Monarch Butterfly Coloring Page at the NCL to learn more about the Monarch Butterfly’s life cycle, its migration, and the importance of fostering native habitats as a way of helping this beloved insect!
Dates: September 14, 2023 and October 15, 2023
Artist Statement:
Jessica Dalrymple’s work is about how she see and value the landscape that surrounds her. Recent work celebrates nature in the city and advocates for urban green space, green infrastructure, and biodiversity. Jessica’s artistic mission is twofold: making object based artwork and creating art events that engage the community with nature in the city. This mission stems from the core belief that connecting more deeply with nature leads to improved health and well-being for all inhabitants and thereby the planet at large.
Jessica’s creative process begins by walking an area extensively and frequently as well as learning its history (and present state) through research and consultation with ecologists, naturalists, and horticulturists as well as sketching, photographing, and collecting specimens. Back at the studio, Jessica fuses all of the above with memory and digital imagery into compositions in oils and mixed media. In her oil paintings, Jessica balances expressive strokes with photo realism to both evoke the feeling of a park while accurately documenting its flora and fauna all in service of showcasing the natural beauty and ecology of New York City’s landscape.
Repurposing older works into new artwork is another component of Jessica’s studio practice. In an effort to reduce her artistic carbon footprint, Jessica strives to be more conscious of her consumption of art materials, have a zero waste policy in her studio, and create lightweight works that require less energy to store, display, and transport.
Dates: June 22 and July 29, 2023
Artist Statement: Local musician Paco Naveira showcases instrumental and vocal motifs on nylon string guitar. Paco performs ongoing compositions throughout the NCL with a small, portable amplifier attached to his body, sharing spontaneous musical and meditative moments with visitors on-site meant to resonate with the space’s unique environment.
Paco says of his first visit to the NCL: “my artistic aspiration is to become fully immersed and ‘enculturated’ in this one-of-a-kind urban yet spiritual landscape.” Check out his other work on Spotify, and his spirit-matters instrumental work here.
2023 Artist in Residence Events are funded by Nature Sacred.
Title: “Layers”
Artist: Aaron Asis
Dates: September 14 – October 24th 2021
Pieces: Large scale paper mural on the NCL entry facade displaying the pre-development landscape of the site. Inside, hundreds of black chalk stripes painted on the boardwalk represent pre-development patterns in the landscape.
Artist Statement: The installation is designed to showcase the past and remind us of the layered history beneath our feet. It consists of two parts: a large scale paper mural on the NCL entry wall displays the pre-development landscape surrounding the Brooklyn Navy Yard and the Naval Cemetery Landscape site. Inside, hundreds of stripes along the boardwalk represent pre-development patterns in the landscape to demonstrate our human impact on the land. Footprints left along the chalked stripes will serve as marks to contemplate and honor the lives historically laid to rest on these grounds. These temporary installations are designed to acknowledge our human impact on the land and to inspire public attention, inquiry, and contemplation into the layered history of this site, the city, and our lives.
Title: “Solitude: In A Landscape”
Artist: Najee Wilson
Dates: August 26 – September 2nd, 2021
Pieces: Film, “Solitude: In A Landscape” projected onto the boardwalk, screened with a live score by musician Ben Brown, images printed on silk and nylon ripstock and hung on shepherd’s hooks throughout the meadow
Artist Statement: “Solitude: In A Landscape” is a celebration of bucolic beauty within an urban oasis, yearning for comfort and the nostalgic pleasures of enjoying nature made in reaction to the chaos of 2020.
Located on the eastern edge of the Brooklyn Navy Yard and accessed from the Brooklyn Waterfront Greenway at Williamsburg St West between Kent and Flushing Avenues. We highly recommend taking public transportation, biking or walking to NCL.
B57/B62Bus to Flushing Av/Classon Av (2 min walk)
B48 Bus to Wallabout St/Wythe Av (5 min walk)
J/M/Z Train to Marcy Ave (11 min walk)
G train to Flushing Ave (13 min walk)
NYC Ferry East River Route, South Williamsburg Landing (15 min walk)
NYC Ferry Astoria Route, Brooklyn Navy Yard Landing (15 min walk)
