Open Road of New York was founded in 1990 to work with children, teenagers, and adults on outdoor environmental projects. They work long term with individual young people, public schools, nonprofit and small business partners, and community volunteers to design, develop, and manage public gardens, playgrounds, parks, and compost systems.

Open Road was created to develop programs and environments with and for young people that promote community, independence and self respect. They develop these programs in partnership with neighborhood groups in need of new natural, educational, and recreational environments. These new environments create new bonds between people of all ages, who unite to establish a living community resource.

-Open Road currently hosts a variety of free programs at their home base, Open Road Park. Programs include a drop-in afterschool program, Saturday family programs, classes, workshops, and tours.
-In addition to providing commercially available composting systems and training local groups in their use, Open Road has developed and patented a low technology system, the Hot Box, in partnership with East Side Community High School and Project Roots/Intermediate School 318. The Hot Box is appropriate for urban composting, and has been installed in a wide variety of locations city wide.
-Teams of Open Road staff, youth, Dept. of Ed. teachers, students and partner groups develop curriculum on participatory design, urban water systems, compost, mapping, and other fields.
-Open Road visits and hosts partner groups in Cuba, Toronto, Montreal and Mexico. The groups work together on exchange programs related to youth development, design & environmental stewardship.