The Vale of Cashmere in Prospect Park has for decades provided a secluded intimate space for people from all over the City, and from all walks of life. It's beloved by birders, herbalists, and arborists for its uninhibited nature and biodiversity that is unique relative to other park areas. It has long been a stronghold of the queer community in a rapidly gentrifying city where affordable and queer third spaces are increasingly inaccessible. It's a natural playground for children to explore unmanicured greenspace. It's a place where people can come for quiet reprieve, solitude, reflection, play, and grief. It's equally a place where people gather to dance, listen to music and to the birds, meet old friends and make new ones, attend workshops, hold performances, and just be together amongst the trees. 

On Monday, March 16th, 2026 the Prospect Park Alliance (PPA) began cutting trees, and there is more to come. The PPA plans to spend more than 37 million dollars on a full renovation of the Vale, and in doing so displace the well-established community that most uses the space. They plan to replace the current landscapes used for gathering with fenced-in greenspace. They have already clearcut a huge portion of the greenery to make way for a two-story viewing platform. 

Moreover, while they say this renovation is in the name of ecological preservation and diversity, their actions support anything but that. The Vale was already one of the most ecologically robust areas of Prospect Park, largely due to the lack of trimming or hemming in of its natural growth for decades. No they are cutting trees and disturbing the rich soils, actively disrupting what they claim to protect.

A key part of the PPA’s plan is to include children’s play areas, a tactic which has been well documented to contribute to the erasure of queer communities and spaces. This, despite the fact that seven other children’s play areas exist in Propect Park, including one immediately adjacent to the Vale. 

While the PPA reports that they engaged community members to inform these decisions, we know that their efforts have been incomplete and immensely biased. None of the community organizations with whom PPA partnered to conduct public engagement sessions included explicitely or primarily queer organizations. Members of birding groups report having advocated against PPA’s proposed plans given the renovation’s threat to the creatures of the Vale, only to have their requests dismissed.

Throughout the process, the PPA has been less than transparent. Organizers have found the PPA’s Capital Projects Tracker to be consistently out of date, representing the Vale to be earlier along in the the renovation than they actually are. Such false information directly inhibits community action as it misleads the public to believe there may be more time and opportunity for feedback than there actually is.  

We demand an immediate and indefinite pause on demolition and construction. We demand attention to the repairs that are needed which don’t destroy the existing ecology and character of this beloved space. We demand a return to community engagement which intentionally engages with the queer community who has made home here for decades.