A trail for Albany ‘trailblazer’
Late environmentalist, youth mentor honored at Tivoli Preserve
As a child growing up in Brooklyn’s Marcy Projects in the 1950s, Yusuf Burgess would slip away to Prospect Park, where he would collect tadpoles.
He hid his love of nature as a child because it was “unmanly.”
Now, seven decades later, a new trail winding through a slice of urban wilderness in
Albany bears the name of the late environmental activist and youth mentor whose slogan was “no children left inside.”
“He had a passion,” said his son, Yusuf Burgess Jr., “and he just followed his passion.”
State and local officials gathered at Tivoli Lake Preserve in the city’s West Hill neighborhood on Tuesday to dedicate a new trail named after Burgess, who dedicated his life to opening up the natural world to youngsters, primarily those in underserved urban neighborhoods.
Burgess, who was known as “Brother Yusuf,” advocated for outdoor programming for years, ferrying kids to the Catskills and the Adirondacks through his work with his Youth Ed-venture and Nature Network and later, the state Department of Environmental Conservation.
“His whole technique was to take a group of kids into nature. It’s like gambling,” his son said — two might love it out of 100.
But that’s OK. And then you take those two kids and nurture that embryonic interest, hopefully finessing it into a lifelong love.
Brother Yusuf died unexpectedly in 2014 at the age of 64.
“Great men aren’t born,” said Burgess Jr. “They become great.”
Damel Burgess recalled his grandfather’s lessons and reminders that the world was increasingly embracing more sustainable policies, including clean energy and wind power, advancements the state is now firmly embracing.
“He was definitely ahead of his time,” Damel said.
Harun Russell, another of Brother Yusuf ’s five sons, said the trips to the Adirondacks had a therapeutic effect on kids once they returned to Albany.
The children were calmer, more focused. They would help old ladies across the street and open doors for them.
“It’s a beautiful thing,” Russell said of the new Brother Yusuf Burgess Trail, a one-mile path curling through the cityowned preserve, which encompasses wetlands, the preserve’s namesake lake and other forms of wildlife — including sheep tasked with gnawing away the invasive species that once consumed the site.
Beginning at the corner of Livingston Avenue and Judson Street, the trail winds downhill deep into the preserve, the site of heavy investments and renewal over the decades.
The effort, part of broader investments to rejuvenate one of the largest urban preserves in the state behind Central Park and the city’s own Normanskill Farm, was made possible through a $1.5 million grant from the DEC and extensive community outreach.
Now officials hope neighborhood residents will carry on Brother Yusuf’s legacy and become stewards of the 80-acre landscape, continuing the work he left unfinished.
“He was a true advocate for youth and the importance of bringing people outdoors,” said Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan. “It transformed how he saw himself.”
Officials see the trail as the beginning of a “crystallization” of a broader trail system, linking to secondary trails at the site.
Previous restoration work sought to push back invasive species that gobbled up 50 percent of the park’s capacity and to clean up the formerly polluted Patroon Creek.
Common Councilman Jahmel Robinson grew up across the street and recalled gazing into the natural landscape.
“The Tivoli Preserve has always been a place of mystery and observation,” Robinson said.
Burgess helped to unlock that for him.
DEC Commissioner Basil Seggos called Brother Yusuf a “trailblazer” and said his influence stretched far beyond simply kindling an appreciation of nature in youth.
“His mission was to expose people to nature, help them to become bigger stewards and to find that solace in nature that we all need in our daily lives, and help us bring that into a new way of living,” Seggos said.
Burgess, a Vietnam vet, served as coordinator of the DEC’S Capital District Campership Diversity Program at the time of his death and previously worked at Green Tech High Charter School and the Albany Boys and Girls Club. He also founded a nonprofit group that helped former prison inmates reenter society.
Dignitaries delivered comments as the first leaves unfurled from branches across the rolling landscape.
Before the delegation trundled into the woods to plant a tree in Brother Yusuf ’s memory, Kim Tateo, executive director and farm manager of Friends of Tivoli Lake Preserve and Farm, asked the group to close their eyes, take a breath and try to focus on a specific bird out of the medley of birdsong.
The world, she said, can be a maddening place sometimes.
“I’d like to believe his spirit is still with us.”