By Gus Saltonstall
The famous Riverside Park goats are preparing to head baaaack to the city for the summer.
The Riverside Park Conservancy announced on Tuesday that seven goats from Green Goats in Rhinebeck, NY, will arrive on the West Side of Manhattan on July 12. For the past four years, the goats have been deployed in a Morningside Heights section of Riverside Park near West 120th Street. This year, they’ll be stationed further uptown at West 143rd Street.
Their mission is the same: munching on poison ivy and invasive species.
“Thanks to the goat crew’s hard work at 120th Street over the past four summers, the human staff at the Conservancy and NYC Parks now have access to a much clearer slope,” the Conservancy said in a news release. “With the success of the goats’ work at that location, native understory and large trees to fill in gaps can be installed, protecting the existing mature tree canopy. The Conservancy is thrilled for the goats to bring their big appetites further uptown.”
The goats are named: Charlise, Chico, Godiva, Mallomar, Paris, Romeo, and Turbo. Chico and Mallomar were both part of the 2023 class in Morningside Heights, and Mallomar took home the G.O.A.T. award, voted on by the public.
“The goats’ work at their previous location has been incredibly productive, and we’re thrilled to be able to replicate their success in another weed-filled area of the Park,” said Merritt Birnbaum, President & CEO of Riverside Park Conservancy, in the release. “They truly have become Riverside Park Conservancy’s mascots, and we’re excited to introduce them to a new neighborhood – and a new all-you-can-eat buffet.”
The goats’ new location at the West 143rd Street slope “aligns with the Conservancy’s North Park Initiative, which focuses on bringing more resources, maintenance, and programming to the uptown sections of the Park,” the release said.
There will be a free festival and ribbon-chewing ceremony on July 12, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., at the Ten Mile River Playground at West 151st Street within the park.
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A small quibble: poison ivy, as unpleasant as it may be, is native, not invasive.
I hope that area is clear of junk and broken glass before they start grazing.
From what I understand about goats they could care less about glass and junk, of which there is plenty up and down the banks of the Hudson in Manhattan.
Well noted. The amount of glass in the earth at Riverside Park is horrifying.
Ok, now they’re just milking it.