On top of a co-op building in Flushing, Queens, on a stark gray afternoon, more than two dozen workers armed with brushes and rollers applied a white coat of paint across the black roof.
“It’s really for it to keep the roofs cooler, and it also makes the whole building cooler as well,” said Domonique Clotter, one of the painters. “It’s very effective, especially during the summer.”
Wearing sunglasses and bucket hats to shield their eyes against the blinding brightness, the workers were creating what’s known as a cool roof — a deceptively simple strategy to fight the summer’s heat. The white paint reflects sunlight, unlike a standard blacktop, which absorbs the sun’s heat.
The effect is twofold. The reflective roof reduces surrounding air temperatures. And it lowers temperatures inside the building during the summer — meaning residents use less energy when running their air conditioners, resulting in less strain on the electric grid and fewer planet-warming carbon emissions. They can cut air conditioning costs by up to 15%, lower internal building temperatures up to 30% and lower ambient air temperatures.
A city government program has installed over 12 million square feet of cool roofs since 2007, with a current goal to install one million square feet each year — and more than half the city still to go.
HOPE Program participants working with NYC CoolRoofs apply a reflective paint to a Flushing residential building roof, May 15, 2025. Credit: Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY
“Cool roofs are important, one of our major strategies to keep cities cooler and reduce the urban heat island effect,” said Mehdi Pourpeikari Heris, an urban planning professor at Hunter College who studies New York City’s program. “As you keep the city cooler, there is a public health benefit, there is an energy benefit, there is a comfort benefit.”
The city’s cool roof effort is also a key part of workforce development under the HOPE Program, a nonprofit that trains jobseekers like Clotter and equips them with professional skills. The initiative is funded by the city and through the federal Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act — which could face cuts under President Donald Trump’s proposed budget.
“It is an opportunity not just to train people,” said the Executive Director Tracey Capers, “but also to make a difference in neighborhoods by improving the housing stock of the buildings, improving the energy efficiency of the buildings, and improving the financial outcomes of the residents in the buildings.”
As part of a decade-long partnership with the HOPE Program and the Mayor’s Office of Climate and Environmental Justice, the Department of Small Business Services offers Cool Roofs at no cost to nonprofits, recreation and community centers, affordable housing and hospitals, and some other qualifying property owners.
Other types of buildings with eligible flat roofs can use the program but must pay for materials, with HOPE providing the labor.
500 Million-Square-Foot Realm
The Flushing roof, with a view of the nearby Unisphere, was the fourth the HOPE crew had painted this season.
Taking a break, Clotter, 24, showed off the tan lines she’d developed over a few weeks of work, and the tattoo on her neck bearing the name of her 1-year-old son.
The Bronx resident joined the HOPE Program aiming to get a job in construction. After about two months, she’d receive OSHA and CPR safety certifications, training in customer service, financial literacy education and interview preparation.
“I’m learning everything they teach in class. I’m picking it up, trying to put it in my professionalism,” Clotter said. “I’m trying to take this serious, finish out strong, get a great job so I’m able to provide for my family and hopefully get a career path out of it.”
But for now, she had a roof to cover, and it would need at least another coat to be complete.
Her supervisor, Gary Lambert, himself had been a participant in the HOPE Program and wanted to start his own landscaping business. He ended up coming back for a full-time job, passing on what he’d learned to others.
Gary Lambert talks about his work using reflective paint on building roofs to help reduce energy usage, May 15, 2025. Credit: Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY
“I got more out of the program than I ever thought, and it still aligns with my career goals,” Lambert said. “I just gravitated more towards the aspect of, like, environmental justice, environmental injustices that are happening in different neighborhoods, communities…. The reason why we paint the roof of white reflective coat is to help reduce carbon emissions here in New York City, to help people.”
Lambert, 31, said he has painted over 100 roofs in his four years involved with HOPE — so long that he didn’t need to wear sunglasses and barely squinted against the brightness. As part of his leadership job, he scoped out rooftops and has had to clear some roofs of trash and drug paraphernalia. He has scooped dead pigeons off others.
Across New York City, about 40% of flat roofs have been coated with reflective paint, according to research Heris, of Hunter College, conducted with his students and researchers at Penn State University.
“We have to paint about 500 million square feet of roof to be able to have 100% cool roofs for flat-roof buildings,” he said. That would require many building owners to take action on their own, beyond reach of the city’s program.
Cool roofs are a relatively quick and inexpensive way to make the city more resilient to extreme heat and lessen its impact. That’s important given the danger of extreme heat, which leads to the deaths of 580 New Yorkers on average each year. And the city — already hotter than surrounding areas because of the so-called heat island effect — is poised to become much warmer due to climate change, with heat waves that will also become more frequent and last longer.
Different neighborhoods are more vulnerable to heat than others, based on environmental and social factors, including tree coverage and income levels. Many of the HOPE Project’s participants hail from those neighborhoods that are the most vulnerable to heat — areas where about 70% of the cool roofs have been installed, according to the Mayor’s Office of Climate and Environmental Justice.
Rasheem Purcell talks about his work using reflective paint on building roofs to help reduce energy usage, May 15, 2025. Credit: Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY
Back on the rooftop of the Flushing apartment building, assistant crew supervisor Rasheem Purcell checked in with the workers. When he started as a job-seeker in the HOPE Program back in 2021, he didn’t understand the significance of the cool roofs work. Now, he teaches the current participants about sustainability, technical requirements and the teamwork needed to get the job done.
“You might look at it like, ‘Oh, it’s just paint, and we’re just painting on a roof,’ he said, “but there’s much more to that.”
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