This spring, 6th-12th grade students in Staten Island will have the chance to participate in a Citizen Science water monitoring project at Freshkills Park. The project will be overseen by Manager of Science and Research Development Cait Field and fellow NYC Department of Parks and Recreation staff.

The Design Trust for Public Space is now accepting submissions for the Future Culture Photo Urbanism Fellowship, in partnership with Staten Island Arts and the Alice Austen House, to focus on the cultural community of Staten Island’s North Shore in a time of transformation.

This material originally appeared in NYC zerowaste’s January 2016 newsletter. Freshkills Park proudly supports DSNY and NYC zerowaste in helping New York City send zero waste to landfills by 2030. 

It’s easy to make resolutions at the start of the new year, but many of us struggle with keeping them for more than a few months. Fortunately, Freshkills Park will be there to help you accomplish a wide variety of goals in 2016.

Freshkills Park is a big fan of temporary structures. As a site that’s only open for public events a few days each year, it’s really valuable to have materials that can be stored, assembled, dismantled, stored, assembled, and so on.

It’s been an amazing year at Freshkills Park.  We have accomplished so much!

2015 by the numbers

Over 10,000 people experienced Freshkills Park this year, whether visiting the park during our new Discovery Days, special events, and programs or participating in presentations around the City.

Freshkills Park is looking for a Development Intern and a Design Intern to join the small staff in the park project’s lower Manhattan headquarters. Both positions are part-time, will involve site visits and provide opportunities to collaboratively contribute to ongoing park planning and project implementation.

NYC Parks is looking for a Freshkills Park Programming Operations Coordinator.

The application deadline is January 8, 2016. Additional information is available at the NYC Parks website.

Major responsibilities:

• Under general supervision, coordinate public program and special event planning and operations on-site at Freshkills Park, including supervision of event staff and logistics and facilities management.

12 years since James Corner Field Operations won the City of New York design competition.  In 2006, NYC Parks assumed responsibility for implementing the project using Field Operations’ Draft Master Plan as a conceptual guide. The basic framework of the plan integrates three separate systems—programming, wildlife, and circulation—into one cohesive and dynamic unit.

Researchers found a rare Swainson’s hawk at Freshkills Park’s East Mound on Tuesday morning. Dr. Richard Veit of The College of Staten Island described the hawk as a western North American grasslands specialist bird.

Just as the sun is beginning to think about setting, Mariel Villeré meets with small groups of photographers in a parking lot outside of the Freshkills Park site. As the park’s Manager for Programs, Arts and Grants, she began inviting people to tour and document the changing landscape in 2014.

Freshkills Park staff provides free programs to schools across New York City that allow 3rd-12th grade students to expand their knowledge on the living evolution of Freshkills from a landfill to a park. These learning opportunities,  including ecological implications, community outreach, design and the arts, are not only available in a classroom setting, but in an outdoor environment as well.

Freshkills Park has a lot to be thankful for. In honor of Thanksgiving, we would like to express our gratitude to:

DSNY for their partnership on this great project.

Park Manager Bonnie Williams and her wonderful crew for caring for those sections of Freshkills Park already built.

We love the New Springville Greenway. Completed this summer, the 3.2 mile bike and walking path runs the length of Freshkills Park on the eastern edge along Richmond Avenue. To celebrate the new 3-mile greenway, we’re sharing NYC Parks Landscape Architect Andrew Deer’s 3 favorite places along the way.

A record 165 runners participated in the 3rd Annual Staten Island Athletic Club (SIAC) Championship Cross-Country Race on Sunday, November 8. SIAC describes this yearly race at Freshkills Park as a chance to run or walk along one of the largest man-made mountains in the world, seeing part of Staten Island that few have seen and encountering wildlife along the way.

On August 29^th and 30^th, Freshkills Park teamed up with CUNY Macaulay Honors College to conduct a BioBlitz of North Park. A BioBlitz is a 24-hr biological survey event aimed at developing a snapshot of as much biodiversity as possible in a given area at a particular time of year.

This fall, Freshkills Park is partnering with the New York Public Library (NYPL) to provide a public educational program called Play, Plan, Prototype which focuses on the historical significance and transformation of Freshkills Park.  Catering to an audience ranging from elementary to high school students, the program aims to expand collaborative and creative thinking through a design challenge.

Freshkills Park is developing a unique digital app that will broadcast the ongoing ecological restoration of the Park and create new potentials in the field of scientific research. The launch of the app will highlight a research project investigating the health of the Park’s cavity nesting birds like tree swallows and house wrens.

This October, the Freshkills Park Alliance is participating in Archtober, a month-long festival of architecture activities, programs and exhibitions throughout New York City. Every day in Archtober has its own “Building of the Day,” giving visitors the chance to tour and learn more about architecture in the five boroughs.

On the 4th of October 2015, Staten Island officially welcomed the addition of the New Springville Greenway, a 3.2-mile pedestrian and bicycle pathway alongside Richmond Avenue. The development is part of the ongoing NYC Parks effort to transform Freshkills Park, which is nearly three times the size of Central Park, from a former landfill into a public space.