NYPA Power Vista Pollinator Gardens

Overlooking the Robert Moses Dam and Niagara River in Lewiston, New York, the Niagara Power Vista is an interactive museum and outdoor observation deck managed by the New York Power Authority (NYPA). Designed in 1962 by Daniel Chait and John Peterkin, the international style building includes an exterior observation deck and garden area designed by the firm of Clark & Rapuano.

Originally conceived as a mixture of birch groves, ornamental flowering trees, and woodland shrubs, the gardens were replaced multiple times between 1990 and 2015 due to the inhospitable growing conditions of the windy gorge and a modified and failed soil profile. The gardens function as an intensive green roof system with approximately 3 feet of soil depth built over the occupied dam control center structure.

Steele Landscape Architecture was hired by NYPA to rehabilitate the gardens to bring back the shrub and woodland character, while also including a functioning pollinator ecology that complements NYPA’s interpretive program. The planting design was preceded by an intensive investigation phase which allowed Steele to prepare a soil rehabilitation plan for the native planting scheme.