NYC Parks in Bay Ridge
The parks along the Bay Ridge shore all belong to NYC Parks. The largest is Shore Park and Parkway, 58 acres along Shore Road and the Belt Parkway. It takes in Shore Road Park, the Narrows Botanical Gardens and the waterfront path that runs four and a half miles from the American Veterans Memorial Pier to Bensonhurst Park. The pier itself is a separate city park.
These parks are where Troop 23 does much of its service. Since 2021 seven of our Scouts have carried out their Eagle Scout service projects in Bay Ridge's city parks, the troop has turned out for cleanups along the shore, and every September it works the 9/11 vigil on the pier. Each place below has its own page with directions and the troop's events there.
The Places
- American Veterans Memorial Pier, the 69th Street Pier, at the foot of Bay Ridge Avenue: the old ferry landing, with the Beacon, a memorial to September 11, and the vigil every September.
- Shore Parkway Greenway, the path for walking and biking along the water beside the Belt Parkway, starting at the pier: Jalen's Eagle project in 2026.
- Shore Road Park, the lawns, paths and courts along Shore Road: Ty's Eagle project near 79th Street in 2025 and a cleanup day there in 2026.
- Narrows Botanical Gardens, gardens kept by volunteers since 1995 on parkland between Shore Road and the Belt Parkway at Bay Ridge Avenue: the Eagle projects of Matthew and Clyde in 2021, and the troop's service days there from 2020 to 2022.
Owl's Head Park, on the hill just north of the pier, is a city park too, and three of the projects below were built there. It has a page of its own for a different reason: Troop 23 began there, in December 1910, meeting in a barn on the estate that later became the park.
Seven Eagle Projects in Five Years
- Narrows Botanical Gardens, January and February 2021. Matthew built five birdhouses and put them up in the garden to bring native birds back.
- Narrows Botanical Gardens, October and November 2021. Clyde ran a book drive, then installed a lending library in the garden and raked nearly the whole garden.
- Owl's Head Park, December 2023. Shi painted park benches.
- Owl's Head Park, April 2024. James painted benches, mulched trees and put in dog-waste bag dispensers, which troop leader Sherman Wong built.
- Owl's Head Park, May 2024. Ivan cleared soil, trash and invasive plants from the fence line along the park's shared walking and biking path and mulched the slope behind it.
- Shore Road Park, September 2025. Ty cleared a storm drain near the 79th Street courts and framed it with lumber, edged the path and planted a fenced flower bed.
- Shore Parkway Greenway, May 2026. Jalen cleared the weeds along the greenway from the pier and repainted its benches and trash cans.
All seven went on to become Eagle Scouts. More of the troop's projects, in these parks and elsewhere, are on the Eagle projects page.
Working with NYC Parks
Work in a city park goes through the city. For the troop's work day in Owl's Head Park in April 2024, Partnerships for Parks, a joint program of City Parks Foundation and NYC Parks, got the Parks Department's approval and ordered the tools, and for Ivan's project a month later the Parks Department lent the tools and took them back at the end. A Scout who wants to build an Eagle project in one of these parks starts with the troop's leaders, who have been through this before.
Troop 23 is a Scouts BSA troop in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, and every family starts the same way: come to a Monday meeting.