Ain't much of a city without its shore - A Ferry talk with Don Riepe

Imagined Futures: This is Your City

Join us for a Ferry talk and tour with longtime shoreline steward and egret whisperer Don Riepe, in conversation with environmental journalist Yessenia Funes.

This tour begins at the Ferry terminal in Wall Street and travels on the water to the Rockaways, where we'll end with a community mashup party at Bungalow Bar.

Participants will be walking for 10-15 minutes as part of the walk and will take one shuttle bus. Please contact us with any accessibility concerns.

Note: Participants are responsible for their own NYC Ferry ticket and late-comers will not be accomodated. Tickets are first come first served and there is no reserved seating. To ensure seating, please arrive 15 minutes before the departure of the Ferry.

Part of a city-wide program and Interactive Scavenger hunt.
Sign up here to participate. This event is worth 1000 points.

With over 30 years experience as a naturalist and manager at Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge, Don doesn’t mess around when it comes to community-based coastal clean up and marsh restoration, fortified with a deep knowledge that protecting the marsh means protecting New Yorkers. Though he’s "retired" from his official role as active director of the Littoral Society, there's no retiring from protecting the shoreline. Just look for the Jamaica Bay Guardian boat and you’ll likely see Don on survey or patrol of the Bay he calls his home.

His contributions to the academic and journalistic realms are countless, including a Masters of Science in Natural Resource Management from the University of New Hampshire, professor of Wildlife Management at St. John’s University, and currently on the advisory board for NYC Audubon, Co-Chair of the Jamaica Bay Task Force; and Chair of the Wildlife Hazard Task Force, JFK Airport.

Yessenia Funes is an environmental journalist born and raised in New York. She focuses on environmental and climate justice, always centering the lived experience of community in her writing. She's presently editor-at-large at Atmos, an independent climate and culture magazine. Her writing can be found in Vox, National Geographic, New York Magazine, Vogue, Scientific American, and more. She publishes a weekly creative climate justice newsletter called Possibilities where she shares her art and musings.

Holes in the Wall Collective takes on the big social challenges with joy, creativity and action by directly supporting and connecting people already doing the work.

They've been reimagining how to engage with our city and world for the last10 years.

This is part of their large initiative Imagined Futures, supporting Climate work happening right now in NYC to support a joyous and sustainable future.

More info HERE.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Rockaway Ferry Terminal, Queens, United States