Unlike many city parks, it is actively managed as a preserve for the purpose of providing habitats for wildlife and supporting a healthy ecosystem for native flora and fauna.

There are also shrubs like clethra and mountain laurel, and many other plant species, including bayberry and native wildflowers such as pink lady’s slipper, May apple, false Solomon’s seal, and Canada mayflower.

[2] Elderberry, Joe Pye weed, goldenrod, bur cucumber, evening primrose, milkweed, and touch-me-nots grow along York Pond near Irving Avenue.

[2] Frequently sighted birds include sandpipers, buffleheads, tree swallows, mute swans, ring-billed gulls and American black ducks.

[5] Aquatic vegetation like spartina grass and phragmites grow in the high marsh areas of the river, while species of seaweed live in the intertidal zone.

Other non-native invasive species in the park include Norway maples, Black locusts, Japanese barberry, garlic mustard, tree of heaven (or Chinese sumac), multiflora rose, and wisteria.

[10] In the 1700s, the site was a part of the 300-acre farm owned by a wealthy merchant and abolitionist Moses Brown (for whom an adjacent private school is named).

Beginning in the 1890s, the city began to expand and develop the park, purchasing eighteen acres from landowners in 1893 and additional land acquired over subsequent decades.