# NYC Parks, Trees & Street Life AI Agent Connect

> NYC Parks, Trees & Street Life MCP provides direct access to New York City's physical infrastructure datasets. Your AI client can query specific street tree risk ratings, locate EV charging stations, check sanitation tonnage by borough, and find local park events or recycling bin locations. It works without requiring your own API keys.

## Overview
- **Category:** government-public-data
- **Price:** Free
- **Endpoint:** https://edge.vinkius.com/vk_preview_CWEagDiepIpZ3Nf3T9f2qDegFwA7Ud5GqdF0Z1Ax/ai-agent-connect
- **Tags:** new-york, nyc, parks, trees, ev-charging, sanitation, litter

## Description

You can use this MCP to pull official NYC data directly into your AI workflows. Instead of digging through government portals, you can ask your agent to find specific details about the city's physical layout and services. You can check the condition and species of managed street trees, locate public EV charging ports, or see how much waste a specific borough collected in a given month. It's built for anyone needing quick, factual lookups on city services like litter basket locations, recycling bin sites, or upcoming recreation programs in local parks. Because Vinkius hosts the connection, you don't have to manage any complex API credentials to get these answers.

## Tools

### get_sanitation_tonnage
This tool retrieves monthly DSNY waste collection tonnage. You can filter by a specific month in YYYY-MM format and an optional borough.

### list_ev_charging_stations
Use this to find NYC electric vehicle charging stations. You can filter results by agency, borough, street, or public availability.

### list_litter_baskets
This tool provides the locations of NYC litter baskets. You can narrow your search by street, borough, or basket type.

### list_parks_events
This tool lists scheduled NYC Parks programs, tours, and fitness classes. You can filter by park name, category, or a specific time window.

### list_recycling_bins
Use this to find curbside recycling bin locations. You can filter by DSNY zone, district, or site type.

### search_ev_charging_sessions
This tool searches through EV charging session records. It allows you to filter by station name, location, date window, or session status to see energy delivered in kWh.

### search_forestry_trees
This tool searches for specific NYC Forestry program trees. You can filter by species, object ID, or risk rating for planted and protected trees.

## Prompt Examples

**Prompt:** 
```
What's on at Prospect Park this weekend?
```

**Response:** 
```
list_parks_events with park "Prospect Park" and start_after the weekend date returns the scheduled program events.
```

**Prompt:** 
```
How many EV charging stations are on 8th Ave?
```

**Response:** 
```
list_ev_charging_stations with street "8th Ave" and public_only "Yes" returns the public stations there with charger type and port counts; search_ev_charging_sessions with a station name shows real usage.
```

**Prompt:** 
```
How much waste does Brooklyn collect in a month?
```

**Response:** 
```
get_sanitation_tonnage with month "2026-08" and borough "Brooklyn" returns that month's refuse, paper, MGP-organics and recycling tonnage for the borough.
```

## Capabilities

### Infrastructure Lookups
Your agent can find the exact location of recycling bins or litter baskets.

### Environmental Monitoring
The AI can check tree species and risk ratings for managed forestry points.

### EV Planning
Your agent can locate charging stations and review energy usage from past sessions.

### Waste Tracking
The AI can pull monthly sanitation tonnage data for any NYC borough.

### Event Discovery
Your agent can find scheduled fitness classes and programs in city parks.

## Use Cases

### EV Infrastructure Mapping
Ask your agent to find all public charging stations on a specific street to plan a route.

### Neighborhood Sanitation Audits
Query monthly waste tonnage to compare recycling and refuse levels across different boroughs.

### Park Activity Planning
Have your agent find upcoming fitness classes or tours in a specific park.

### Urban Forestry Checks
Check the health and risk ratings of specific managed trees in a neighborhood.

## Benefits

- No API keys required as Vinkius handles all credentials.
- Direct access to official NYC Open Data through a single connection.
- Fast, text-based queries replace manual searching through city websites.
- Works with any MCP-compatible client like Claude or Cursor.

## How It Works

Connecting to this NYC data is a one-time setup that gives your AI immediate access to city datasets.

1. Subscribe to the NYC Parks, Trees & Street Life MCP on Vinkius.
2. Connect your preferred client like Claude or Cursor using the Vinkius connection string.
3. Ask your AI agent a specific question about NYC infrastructure.
4. The agent calls the relevant tool to fetch real-time data from NYC Open Data.
5. Your agent provides the answer directly in your chat interface.

## Frequently Asked Questions

**Do I need to sign up for an NYC Open Data API key?**
No. Vinkius hosts the connection and manages the data access so you don't need your own keys.

**Which AI clients can I use with this MCP?**
You can use this with any MCP-compatible client, including Claude, Cursor, and Windsurf.

**Can I find specific tree information?**
Yes. You can search for managed forestry trees to find species, trunk size, and risk ratings.

**Does this include EV charging usage data?**
Yes. You can list charging stations or search specific charging sessions to see energy delivered in kWh.

**Is the sanitation data current?**
The tool pulls from NYC Open Data, allowing you to query monthly tonnage for any borough.

**Do I need an API key?**
No. NYC Open Data serves all public datasets anonymously over its SODA API (data.cityofnewyork.us). This MCP defines no credentials and needs nothing configured.

**How fresh is this data?**
Each set updates on its own cycle: events as the parks program calendar changes, tree attributes from the annual inventory, EV sessions continuously, and sanitation tonnage by month. The response always carries the row's own date fields, so you can see exactly how recent each fact is.

**Can I look things up by address?**
Yes, within each tool's scope: EV stations and litter baskets by street name and borough; recycling bins by DSNY zone/district and site location; trees by object id or species; events by park name.