Free activities and events in New York City

Tree Walk Brooklyn: Heat, History, and the City’s Future

Published: September 26, 2025; Aithor: Julia Sonrisa

Are you curious about the trees lining your neighborhood streets and want to learn how to identify them? Or interested in how climate change and city planning shape the shade (or lack of it) in different parts of New York? This walking tour invites participants to experience heat in real-time while also providing an introduction to the fascinating world of urban trees — their history, challenges, and the surprising ways they shape city life.

Led by TRAQ-certified arborist Reed Logan (8 years of experience in NYC urban forestry), we’ll journey from Gowanus to Prospect Park on a hot September day.

Along the way, we’ll:

• Learn the basics of tree identification, gaining a new way to notice the species growing around us and how each one responds differently to city conditions.
• Examine struggling street trees in Gowanus and learn about the hidden challenges of planting and maintaining an urban forest.
• Walk through Park Slope to uncover how redlining and Robert Moses’ planning decisions shaped patterns of shade, greenery, and inequality.
• End in Prospect Park, observing the stark contrast between natural canopy growth and the stressed trees of city streets.

Part lecture, part sensory experience, this Heat Walk will ask participants to feel the heat for themselves, reflect on how climate change is reshaping our neighborhoods, and consider the systems—ecological, political, and social — that determine who gets shade and who doesn’t.

Facilitators:

• Reed Logan, TRAQ Certified Arborist — Specialist in urban tree planting, inspection, and construction impact mitigation. Reed has overseen multimillion-dollar tree planting contracts across NYC and brings deep expertise in the science and politics of the city’s trees.
• Jack Klein, Founder of NewYorkLab — Leads research on NYC’s subway microclimates, developing novel sensor platforms to measure heat and air quality. His work has engaged millions online and informed conversations with public agencies, researchers, and practitioners focused on climate resilience.

Why Now: As New York faces hotter summers and more extreme weather, understanding the uneven geography of heat and shade is critical to advancing equity, health, and resilience. This walk makes the invisible visible — transforming urban heat from an abstract climate metric into a lived, felt experience.

Location: 406 3rd Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11215, United States

Time: 11:00 am — 1:00 pm EDT

Free!

Registration

Detailed information and discussion of the event.