A Patch of Green Grows in the Bronx

The seeds were planted several years ago in Chicago, where Father Nelson A. Belizario, O.Carm., a Carmelite Friar, knew of Mayor Richard M. Daley’s efforts to make Chicago the greenest city in America. Daley’s efforts resulted in green roofs on City Hall, on the new Soldiers Field parking deck, on Millennium Park, on various Parks Dept roofs, on the ABN–AMRO Computer Data Centre, on Prudential Plaza, as well as numerous new planters on highways, city streets and sidewalks, a virtual urban greening, driven by a visionary and forceful Mayor.

“Father Nelson” accepted an appointment as pastor at Saint Simon Stock Church located on Valentine Avenue in the center of the Bronx, a low-income neighborhood that has become a haven for immigrants seeking a new and better life in America, a 21st century melting pot. Originally constructed by the New York Archdiocese in the 1920’s as a 1st through 12th school, it is currently used for grades K through 8. Upon arrival, Father Nelson found the eighty-year old building in need of major masonry rehabilitation, as well as a new roof.

With Mayor Daley’s urban “greening” in his minds eye, Father Nelson knew in his heart that Saint Simon Stock’s new roof should be a green roof. Imagine a green oasis set in the urbanized center of the Bronx! Couldn’t such a structure catalyze a wave of green in the Big Apple? (As luck would have it, the selfsame thoughts had occurred to a most forward thinking borough president, but stay tuned).

The benefits of cleaning the air, creating a more comfortable environment inside the school, using less energy, reducing noise, providing a model for urban storm water management, and increasing biodiversity were all appealing, but perhaps most important to Father Nelson was giving the students and the teachers a green space, a healthy park-like setting, where they could grow fresh vegetables, conduct science experiments and find a place of peace and harmony, away from the hustle and bustle of the dense urban environment of Bronx streets.

By luck, Father Nelson found his way to the Gaia Institute, headed by Dr. Paul Mankiewicz. The Gaia Institute is an Ecological Engineering non-profit organization based on City Island, in New York City. Dr. Mankiewicz and the Gaia Institute have been promoting the concept of green roofs and roof gardens for more than two decades, clearly a visionary view in the 1980’s. In March, 2004, Dr. Mankiewicz and Tim Barrett both attended the “Roofing for the Next Millennium” conference in New York City. During a break, they met Kate Shackford, Director of the Bronx Initiative for Energy and the Environment (BIEE), an initiative of Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion’s Bronx Overall Economic Development Corporation (BOEDC).

Discussing Saint Simon Stock’s dilemma, she indicated that BOEDC could potentially provide a grant for the incremental cost of a green roof on Saint Simon Stock, since Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion had already secured funds for just such a program.

Dr. Mankiewicz called on Tim Barrett, a Registered Roof Consultant and President of the Barrett Company, for moisture and thermal protection advice in the context of a green roof design for Saint Simon Stock. After the basic waterproofing design and budget was drafted by Barrett, the next challenge was funding for the project.

Working with the Gaia Institute, the Archdiocese and their Structural Engineers, the Barrett Company, and Father Nelson, a grant proposal was developed by Karen Argenti, Policy Advisor for the Gaia Institute, coincidently, a High School graduate of Saint Simon Stock. The grant request was submitted to the Bronx Initiative for Energy and the Environment, and eventually approved for $125,000.00.

The school was prepared to pay for a new, conventional roof, but had little money for the masonry rehabilitation necessary in order for any new roof work to proceed in proper sequence, and certainly no money for the green roof enhancement. The grant enabled preparation of the roof for children, including a protective fence, planting a garden with lightweight soil, and weather monitoring equipment.

The next step was to develop final design and create bid documents, which Tim Barrett prepared and submitted to the engineers for their consideration. Barrett Company invited three of their locally approved contractors to submit bids for the project. Dr. Mankiewicz provided the horticultural design and specifications including a vegetation plan which incorporated a very unique growing media—a lightweight soil, for which Dr. Mankiewicz and the Gaia Institute hold the patent.

Due to high masonry rehabilitation costs and the cost of adding safety fencing, the green roof budget had to be cut. To further complicate matters, all of the roofing bids came in over budget. Barrett redesigned the green roof, reducing some insulation thickness, reducing the extent of concrete paver walkways, and changed a few other incidentals. Spirited negotiations between the contractors, Father Nelson and Tim Barrett ensured, with Bulado Construction emerging as the victorious contractor, its price within the revised budget.

Lead by Tony Lado, Bulado Construction started to work in February, 2005, and completed the waterproofing work in March. The Gaia Institute then proceeded with the installation of the growing media and vegetation. Working with Brian Aucoin of the GreenApple Corps, an AmeriCorps initiative of the City of New York Parks and Recreation, forty well-trained stewards planted, watered, and cultivated the garden. Jeannette Compton, a graduate student who is using the project as the basis for her Masters thesis at Cornell University monitored and managed the landscaping.

The Barrett “Greenroof- Roofscape®” assembly consisted of a 215 mils thick Barrett “Ram Tough 250” monolithic rubberized asphalt membrane, polyester reinforcement, SBS protection course, extruded polystyrene insulation, root barrier, water retention/drainage mat, and filter fabric.

The horticultural portion of the assembly includes the Gaia Institute’s engineered growing media, jute fabric, recycled mulch and approximately twenty native species of plants, along with some non–native prairie grasses planted along an edge expected to experience the driest conditions.

There are two walkway paths, one of concrete pavers with steel curbing and one of recycled PET lattice work, which has plants placed in the interstices of the lattice. A sixfoot safety fence was installed atop the parapet walls, which will be planted with “screening” vine plants, chosen to attract humming birds and butterflies.

The Gaia Institute will collect data from the green roof installation at Saint Simon Stock with a research grade weather station along with soil monitoring probes. Gaia Institute Hydrologist Todd McDonnell will monitor and capture rain from the upper roof to drain pipes which will be fitted with devices to measure the time lag, rate, and total volume of runoff. Data will be collected and provided to the school and will be easily accessed by students and faculty who wish to use it for educational purposes and scientific research. Finally, an economic comparative study of the heating cost savings will be presented.

In closing out the project, the Barrett Company donated the cost of their Ram Tough membrane and Bulado Construction made an equally generous cash contribution back to Saint Simon Stock, both contributions being used to defray some of the upgrades to the green roof garden setting.

Father Nelson is very pleased with the results. Teachers are bringing in vegetable plants, tours are being scheduled and the student body is excited about all of the possibilities they see unfolding in the months and years to come, in this little patch of green growing in the Bronx.

A ground breaking ceremony was held on Thursday, July 28, “up on the roof.” In September when the school children returned, they celebrated the new term.