NYC Audubon’s Dustin Partridge wants New York City to become more livable for both people and wildlife—and green roofs, he says, are key to that effort.

As you walk through the apple orchard, with Honeycrisps and GoldRushes at your feet, a swallow flies by, then a kinglet and an Eastern phoebe, whose presence signals the start of the fall migration. Not far off, grape vines grow along a trellis, native wildflowers buzz with insect activity, and ripe tomatoes and ears of corn wait to be picked.

Taking it all in, you could easily imagine being on a bucolic farm in upstate New York, far from the hustle of the city. But if you listen closely, you can hear the cars whizzing by on the West Side Highway 60 feet below. And if you turn around, you can see the Empire State Building to the east.

This is the scene atop the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in midtown Manhattan, home to nearly eight acres of greenery, from short, low-maintenance sedum to tall grasses—making it one of the largest green roofs in the U.S. and a habitat for more than 60 bird species. On a cool, sunny August morning, Dustin Partridge, Ph.D., GSAS ’20, director of conservation and science at NYC Audubon, is walking from section to section, stopping often to look through binoculars at birds he spots out of the corner of his eye.

Partridge began studying the benefits of urban green roofs for wildlife not long after he began his biology graduate studies at Fordham in 2009. As his research expanded and he decided to go beyond his master’s program to pursue a doctorate, he became one of the first researchers on the Javits Center green roof following its installation in 2014, and he and his staff have continued to monitor its animal and insect activity closely ever since.

For Partridge, it’s a critical part of making New York City more hospitable to humans and wildlife—and more resilient amid heat waves and other effects of climate change.

A Look at the Main Building’s Roof

Dustin Partridge stands on the main roof’s sedum.

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Protecting Birds and Boosting Biodiversity

NYC Audubon is one of more than 450 independent chapters of the National Audubon Society, a network designed to “protect birds and the places they need” throughout the U.S. (NYC Audubon has announced its plan to change its name in 2024, due to John James Audubon’s legacy as a slave owner; the national organization has not announced a similar plan.)

To understand why birds need protection broadly, consider this: North America has lost nearly 25% of its bird population in the past 50 years, according to research published in Science magazine. The causes range from climate change and habitat loss to toxic pesticide use—and the research points to wider disruptions of ecosystems vital to both humans and wildlife.

To understand why birds need protection in New York City, consider two factors: The city lies squarely on the Atlantic flyway migration route—an air path for transient birds that stretches from Greenland to South America and includes ground areas where birds stop to find food to fuel their journey. The city is also home to more than 8 million people—and an infrastructure that has not only replaced natural habitats but is often hostile to the wildlife still around. It is a city of glass skyscrapers, one in which up to 230,000 birds die each year in window collisions, according to NYC Audubon research.

It’s within this setting that Partridge and his colleagues at NYC Audubon—along with a dedicated cast of volunteers—are working toward protecting wild birds and their habitats in the five boroughs. They do this through initiatives ranging from bird-friendly building campaigns like Project Safe Flight that aim to help birds migrate through the city safely, to community science bird surveys in which amateur birders and experts alike can submit data based on their local observations. The organization’s work, though, is not only about benefiting wildlife, according to Partridge.

“Biodiversity is important for humans,” he says. “It helps reduce the impacts of climate change. It can lead to ecotourism. Everything we do for wildlife and for birds is also very much for people, especially when it comes to quality of life in the city.”

And while biodiversity is both apparent and expected at other sites where NYC Audubon conducts research—from coastal wetlands like South Brother Island in the Bronx to large green spaces like Central Park—it can also thrive in places fewer people see or know about, like at the Kingsland Wildflowers green roof atop the Broadway Stages film and TV studio in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, or within the Justice Avenue bioswale in Elmhurst, Queens, a vegetated ditch that catches dangerous combined sewer overflow and holds it until it can be absorbed by the underlying soil.

Of all the projects NYC Audubon has worked on, though, the Javits Center, with its midtown Manhattan location, stands as one of the organization’s most distinctive research hubs, one that is fertile for both biodiversity and human collaboration.

Wildlife on the Javits Center Roofs

Herring gulls flying above the Javits Center

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A Green Roof ‘Role Model’ in Midtown Manhattan

As the Javits Center green roof neared completion in 2014—just two years after New York state announced plans to raze the building—Partridge began working as an ecologist and green roof program manager at NYC Audubon. By that time, he had decided to turn his research on urban green roofs into a doctoral dissertation, working closely with Fordham biology professor J. Alan Clark, Ph.D.

Along with Clark and master’s student Kaitlyn Parkins, GSAS ’15, who was studying bat foraging activity on green roofs, Partridge spent hours atop the building’s springy sedum carpet setting up bird monitors and collecting insect samples to track food availability.

“Dustin was that original researcher on the Javits Center green roof,” notes Clark, who also called his former advisee “a visionary, hard-working man.”

In the years since beginning his research, not only did Partridge attain his doctorate, in 2020, but he became a founding member of the Green Roof Researchers Alliance, a consortium of more than 60 researchers, teachers, and policymakers for which he is currently the managing director. The group advocates for green roofs not only as sites for increasing biodiversity but also as tools that offer energy savings for buildings, increased stormwater capture, and improvements in air quality.

And as Partridge’s role at NYC Audubon has grown, so has the organization’s work with the Javits Center, which opened a large expansion to its north side in 2021. Atop that expansion is where you can find the orchard, pollinator garden, and working farm, all of which are managed by Brooklyn Grange and serve as additional sites for NYC Audubon research.

For Partridge and his colleagues, their field station on the original building roof—a trailer with monitoring equipment and a computer—allows them to dig deeper into the diversity and amount of wildlife populating all those acres, a group that included more than 60 bird species as of October 2023.

All this activity makes the Javits roof a point of interest for others looking to replicate its success—from the mayor of Seoul, South Korea, where a new convention center is being planned, to the New York State Office of General Services, which has shown interest in setting up similar green roofs across its administrative buildings. That success has also led to plenty of positive press for the project, with recent media attention from The New York Times, WNYC, and Gothamist, among other outlets.

“Javits has become quite a role model for the city, both in terms of bird-friendly design and for the green roof,” Partridge says. “We’ve learned so much here and it’s been great for moving the city’s policy forward. It’s a really well-known building to point to: This could be the rest of the city.’”

So, will it be the rest of the city?

Scenes from the North Building’s Roof

Partridge next to the north roof’s pollinator garden

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Legislative Progress—But Work to Be Done

While green roofs are far from ubiquitous in New York City—and while access to them and other green spaces is still unevenly distributed toward wealthy areas—Partridge points to some examples of progress. In 2019, the New York City Council passed Local Laws 92 and 94, both part of the city’s Climate Mobilization Act, which require all new buildings or roof replacements to have a “sustainable roofing zone”—solar panels, a green roof, or a combination—covering 100% of the roof.

Meanwhile, the city’s green roof tax abatement offers property owners $5.23 per square foot of green roof space and $15 per square foot in districts deemed priority areas based on a lack of green space, combined sewage overflow issues, and heat vulnerability. And as for the protection of birds, in 2020, New York City enacted Local Law 15, which requires all new construction and significant renovations in the city to use bird-friendly materials like visible window glazing or UV-reflective patterns.

“It’s so important that as people create these habitats that they use bird-friendly glass surrounding them,” says Parkins, who went on to work and consult for NYC Audubon from 2013 to 2022 and is now the glass collisions program coordinator for the American Bird Conservancy. “The worst thing we can do is lure birds and other wildlife into places that are dangerous for them.”

NYC Audubon and its counterparts at the state organization, Audubon New York, are also advocating for two pieces of legislation—the Lights Out Act at the local level and the Dark Skies Act at the state level. Both laws would curb the use of interior and exterior lights in buildings that are dormant through the night. Those bright lights are a major cause of bird death because they lure migrating birds away from their intended path and cause them to crash.

Partridge says that New Yorkers who would like to see that legislation passed, or who want to see green roofs added to their buildings without a mandate, can call their City Council members and state legislators, and talk to their building owners about the benefits of sustainable roof coverage.

He also encourages both avid birders and more casual, curious parties to volunteer with NYC Audubon or even just to sign up for a free birding tour, which can underscore the importance of protecting New York City’s wildlife and their habitats.

“It’s incredible, the bird life that’s in the city,” he says, “and we have really amazing guides that can take you out. It’s just great to see not only the birds that will spend their summers or winters here but also the birds that are migrating through. It’s a whole new world that so many New Yorkers don’t see, and it’s an amazing aspect of the city.”

“I was struck by the diversity of projects featured, but what most impressed me was the creativity and resilience of our students, several of whom had to reinvent their projects in the face of pandemic restrictions,” said Stark-Gendrano. “It was inspiring to see such good work come out of such challenging conditions.”

From combating global warming to undermining misogyny to embracing immigration to parsing gender identity and sparking the attention of boys with ADHD—the ideas of graduating seniors and their undergraduate peers filled four days of sessions on Zoom.

This Land is Her Land

Senior Selena Juarez-Galindo, a visual arts major, presented her multimedia work in a project titled “Exploring my Mexican Family History through Art.”

“My family are all basically undocumented immigrants and I am the first generation,” Juarez-Galindo said, noting that since she was born in the U.S. she has full citizenship.

Juarez-Galindo’s family is from a town called Guerrero, where people native to the land still speak Mixteco, a language that predates the Spanish conquest of Mexico. The intention of her artwork is “to chase a native narrative” and portray distinct images of her family’s culture and show others that it’s not unlike their own.

She noted that her required courses in theology deepened her understanding of the plight of her family and the struggles faced by immigrants and refugees.

“When it comes to immigrants here, there has to be a kind of morality that’s above the law, especially when American nationalism can create really horrible effects,” she said of the consequences facing people crossing the border, such as separating children from their parents. “There have been so many immoral things in history that were legal, such as slavery. Our morality has to come first.”

Keeping Boys’ Attention During Online Programs

Senior Arbi Kumi, a psychology major, has always been interested in what makes the mind tick, though he had never concentrated on the mind of a child. His study, “Exploring the Feasibility and Effectiveness of a Virtual Summer Treatment Program for Children with Behavioral and Social Problems,” sprang from an internship at the Child Mind Institute, a mental health nonprofit clinic for children. There, he was assigned to a virtual summer camp for boys with ADHD. With permission from the institute and from parents, he studied how boys’ attention improved and/or degraded during a virtual adaptation of a summer camp program. Instead of five days a week at six hours a day, the program ran for just two hours a day for five days a week. The boys, who worked in peer groups, showed substantial gains during treatment that sought to improve their social skills over the course of the program, he said.

“We knew anecdotally that screen fatigue was a problem and it might not be interesting enough to keep the boy’s attention, so online games like Fortnite, Minecraft, and Roblox were used as a reward and something we could use to teach them new social skills,” said Kumi.

By using parental surveys and a point system administered by camp counselors, Kumi found that post-treatment levels showed significant improvement in social skills, including group discussions, helping or being flexible, and sticking to a plan—particularly with peer support. However, he said, certain problem behaviors, such as interrupting, did not improve. Beyond the findings, Kumi said that he learned a lot about his own perceptions of children.

“It was so much fun; this one boy had a new nickname for me every day, he was so funny, so smart,” he said. “I also realized how much stigma is placed on mental health as opposed to physical health.”

Delving into Arabic LGBTQ+ Identity in NYC

Senior Batool Abdelhafez, who goes by the pronoun they, majored in anthropology and psychology. For their project titled “Identity, Duality, and Kinship Among LGBT Arab-Americans in the American Diaspora,” they interviewed 15 members of the LGBT+ Arab American community and the Southwest Asian and North African community (SWANA). They set out to find what gave people in the group a unique sense of personhood, and in what spaces the group felt free to be true to themselves. Lastly, they sought to define whether LGBT+ Arab American and SWANA individuals consider themselves to be a separate subculture from the LGBT+ community at large.

“The emergence of colonialism demonized and categorized LGBT+ Arabs as something to be duly exoticized, but also viewed as somehow degenerate, backward, or uncivilized,” they said. “We see this context even today just for Arabs in general, right? But it’s even more so for LGBT Arabs.”

They noted that all their subjects were proud of being LGBT+, which helped them dissect layers of identity that included class, national identity, and being LGBT+ in New York City. Their study found that all subjects expressed sentiments about being racialized, being discriminated against, and feeling exoticized. The group’s experiences were unique enough that a community separate from the LGBT+ community has formed, they said. They spoke of a burgeoning scene expressed in art, music, and culture at nightclub parties such as Yalla! and via community groups, such as Tarab NYC.

Teenage Girls on the Verge

Senior Gillian Russo majored in journalism. Her presentation, “Women Of Mass Destruction: Power, Violence, and the Supernatural in Teenage-Girl Theatre,” examined four recent plays that combine violence and witchcraft as perpetrated by teenage girls. The plays were produced and directed by women and non-binary artists. Russo asserted that the plays shocked audiences with an uncomfortable truth that teenage girls—”the last group you’d expect to be violent”—could also be viewed as “natural partners” to horror.

Russo chose the plays because she saw a trend developing between magic, witchcraft, and teenage girls in the theater. She also noted that the plays took on societal views of women more broadly. Too often media employs the catty girl trope, she said, and ignores the depth of adolescent emotion that could rise to the level of theatrical violence.

“Most girls aren’t necessarily this violent in real life, but in the elevated world of the theater you can go to extreme examples,” she said. “What better way to drive that home than putting it live on stage in front of you, and showing the most extreme thing that a girl can do, like violence, so she can lead her own charge for self-recognition and self-realization?”

Going Rooftop Green

Lydia Hallett, a senior majoring in environmental studies, presented on “The Cost-Benefit Analysis of Urban Green Roofs.” After studying abroad in Sweden, Hallett saw a proliferation of green rooftops there and decided to conduct a cost-benefit analysis of green rooftops in New York. She found herself with more questions than answers.

“In my research that I wanted to understand these kinds of large solutions, and what it actually means for a city to take that on,” said Hallett.

Hallett identified public benefits that green roofs provide, including stormwater management, biodiversity, and improved air quality. However, she also found that high up-front installation costs often overshadowed returns on investments for most developers.

“No one wants to put a price tag on nature, but that’s kind of what has to be done for order in order for people to understand the benefits of green roofs,” she said.