National Park Service 100th birthday event in NYC on Monday

Celebrate the 100th birthday of the National Park Service with a FREE all-day festival of music, free ice cream and more, at Brooklyn Bridge Park. This special event includes a special inter-active game that gives participants the chance to control the colors of the One World Trade Center center spire for the first time ever, plus a long list of family-friendly activities.

The party is on Monday, August 22, 100 years to the day that the US Congress established the best national park system on the planet, sponsored jointly by the National Park Service and the National Park Foundation.  It’s part of year-long events celebrating the National Park Service, which includes such world-famous spots in New York City as the Statue of Liberty, Grant’s Tomb, and the Birthplace of Theodore Roosevelt.

Here’s part of what’s on the calendar for the day:

• 1:30 – 3:30 PM – Ice cream social with Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory
• 2:00 – 4:00 PM – Musical performance by kid-friendly band, Ramblin’ Dan
• 5:45 PM – 6:45 PM – Surprise musical performance
• 7:45 PM – Opening Remarks with Bill Nye (Centennial Ambassador for the Find Your Park/Encuentra Tu Parque movement), U.S. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell, Will Shafroth (National Park Foundation President),  and Regina Myer (Brooklyn Bridge Park President)
• 8:00 – 10:00 PM – Guest celebrity DJ set by Questlove

All day long, there are family-friendly activities such as like sand-art, corn hole, temporary tattoos, games, prizes and learning stations with National Park Foundation #FindYourPark/#EncuentraTuParque movement.

There also will be interactive stations with #Find Your Park/Encuentra Tu Parque partners American Express, Subaru, and Coca-Cola.

• American Express – and its nonprofit partner Games for Change will host an interactive game experience showcasing the new FREE iOS game Save the Park ­ where you play as a park volunteer and experience the conservation activities that support the national parks. The app is designed for kids, although parents and grandparents will enjoy it, too. Amex also hosts a special “Smart Parks Game Jam” in which participants  learn the basics of game design and prototype games that encourage people to use technology to interact with parks, showing how games can inspire environmental stewardship and civic engagement. Games will be played by judges and winners will receive prizes provided by Games for Change.
• Subaru of America – will be on-site to raise awareness of its National Park Zero-Landfill Initiative, an effort to significantly reduce waste going into landfills from all nationalparks, while educating attendees on how they can help keep the parks beautiful for another 100 years. To further divert waste from landfills, Subaru will be collecting soft drink and water bottle caps to be recycled into a park bench and donated to an organization or park in need. Subaru also funded the excellent IMAX 3D National Parks Adventure film, showing at museums nationwide. including the American Museum of Natural History in NYC.
• The Coca-Cola Company  – will showcase their Active Trails initiative, which promotes getting community members outdoors and active in parks, deepening connections with local communities, and inspiring the next generation of park visitors and supporters.

This is a great chance to show your support for our national parks, monuments and other and historic sites administered by the National Park Service.

If you can’t attend the party in Brooklyn Bridge Park on Monday, August 22nd, you can participate virtually, via the Statue of Liberty’s webcam of New York Harbor which will offer views of New York City for the day.

Across the country, National Park Service sites will join the celebration using Facebook Live as they complete a “virtual park circuit.” The circuit will start and end at the Brooklyn Bridge Parkevent site in New York, with park rangers throughout the country exploring different concepts of innovation, one park at a time. Each park will in turn tag the next one in the series and the circuit will be completed with a return to Brooklyn for the last live post. More information about the Virtual Park Circuit can be found online here.

About Brooklyn Bridge Park: The host and a partner for the New York Park Exchange event, Brooklyn Bridge Park is an 85-acre sustainable waterfront park stretching 1.3 miles along Brooklyn’s East River shoreline; its mission is to create and maintain a world class park that is a recreational, environmental and cultural destination enjoyed by the residents of, and visitors to, New York City. Plus, it’s got some dynamite picture postcard views of the Manhattan skyline.