Milton Puryear is one of three founders of Brooklyn Greenway Initiative (BGI), formed in 2004 to create and maintain the proposed 14-mile Brooklyn Waterfront Greenway. Milton manages projectdevelopment. The goal of the greenway is to connect Brooklyn’s waterfront communities that are divided by transportation infrastructure and poorly served by public transit, but are experiencing rapid growth. The greenway is making non-motorized commuting accessible to thousands of people who live or work alongthe waterfront. It is also bringinghealthful active recreation within walking distance to a half million Brooklyn residents and to provide a non-motorized transportation option that connects Brooklyn’s waterfront communitieswith the Manhattan andQueens greenway systems. The greenway is configured to have separate paths for bikes and pedestrians, to be physically separated from traffic, landscaped and continuous. BGI is working to include storm water infrastructure that will remove much of Brooklyn’s East River sub watersheds from the City’s combined sewer system and improve flood resilience and to create new open spaces where it can restore native plant communities.
Milton is the project manager for the restoration of the Mill River and the creation of Mill River Park & Greenway in Stamford CT where two dams have been removed, the river channel reconstructed, salt marshes restored and several acres of invasive plants replaced by native species. River herring are being reintroduced and 12 acres of the planned 28-acre park were opened to the public in May 2013. The $100 million project includes major green infrastructure features and is a changing the downtown flood map lowering 100-year flood elevations by two and a half feet.
During the 1980s, Milton ran a small investment banking firm focused on early stage companies. In the 1990s his company NOVAResearchprovided research to institutional money managers.
