Designed by Parks Commissioner Andrew Haswell Green in the late 19th century, Inwood Hill Park is home to Manhattan’s last forest and alleged historic site of the island’s acquisition by the Dutch under Peter Minuit from the Lenape people in 1624. The Inwood Hill Park Conservancy is a nonprofit organization established by residents in 2017 to provide the Uptown Community (Inwood/Washington Heights) and the New York City Parks Department with the resources necessary to affect sustained conservation of Inwood Hill Park’s green/open spaces; for the posterity of native flora and generations of visitors to come. The IHPC team conduct research to develop low-tech civil engineering projects that help to maintain the forests natural environment; we raise fund sustainable eco projects; we create programs designed to train and educate the public in community stewardship. Today, Inwood Hill Park is regraded a “destination,” by avian experts and horticulturalists with some of the most complex ecological niche communities present in the New York City Parks system—with over 238 species of plant and 205 species of bird within 145 acres of forest, known as the Shorakkopoch Nature Preserve.
