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It's the summer of mini-golf!
Putting Green, an 18-hole course on a 15,000-square-foot tiered deck on the North Williamsburg riverfront has finally opened at the former Con Edison site that now belongs to developer Two Trees.
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The course aims to serve two purposes—one, to provide a fun time to New Yorkers, and two, to teach them about climate change, green and blue infrastructure, animal habitats, energy, and emissions.
Each hole offers up a different scene—hole 1 is "Down the drain," showing how litter and debris get washed down storm drains and into waterways. Hole 2, "Whale Fall Feast," shows what happens when a whale dies and sinks to the bottom of the ocean. Hole 15, is "The Big Oyster" by you guessed it, the Billion Oyster Project. Other holes feature polar bears, a windmill, a cow, and a depiction of sea-level rise.
Local artists and design professionals, community and school groups, environmental advocacy organizations and public agencies designed the course, using environmentally friendly methods at each hole. For example, a globe at the course's entrance is made from recycled plastic bottle caps and scraps of left-over turf. All of the curbing surrounding the holes is also made of 100% recycled tires and all of the plants in and around the course were selected for their native habitat qualities and to complement the existing self-seeded landscape.
The North Williamsburg lot (River Street and North 1st Street) where the course sits is part of the future Two Trees River Ring site—a repurposing of a former industrial location into a protected public beach, an in-water park, a nature play area, an overlook, a nature trail, a salt marsh, and more that will protect the area from flooding. There will also be 1,050 new homes, including 263 affordable housing units.
For now, New Yorkers can enjoy mini-golf daily—there will be food trucks and local eateries on site to offer food and drink to those at Putting Green and the adjacent River Street Farm Collective, a 20,000-square-foot Sustainable Farm with an aquaponic farm by Oko Farms with fish tanks and garden beds growing vegetables, herbs and flowers which will be donated to farmers' markets in underserved communities.
Tickets to golf are $10 for adults and $5 for kids and seniors (hint: before 5pm on Wednesdays and 1pm on Saturdays, tickets are discounted to $5 for adults and $2 for kids). All proceeds from tickets will go to local nonprofit organizations addressing climate change in NYC.