Confluence: Artists on Water and Change (VIDEO)
In October, 2016, to launch the Field R/D public art initiative, co-curators Mariel Villeré and Dylan Gauthier organized a public boat tour of Confluence, the meeting of two historic rivers at the center of the future Freshkills Park. They invited artists working in the public realm to narrate the trip.
...MOREProgramming Associate: Catherine Montalvo
Catherine Montalvo (a.k.a “Cat”) is a seasonal Programming Associate at Freshkills Park. She’s from a part of Queens, New York that is known for its expansive beaches and boardwalk. She recently graduated from Syracuse University with a BS in Biology and Minor in American History.
...MOREA Look At “Inside the Bird Chorus”
Freshkills Park celebrated summer solstice on June 21 with Make Music New York for “Inside the Bird Chorus” where the woodlands and grasslands meet in South Park. Naturalist Seth Wollney led an auditory bird tour and trumpeter Volker Goetze accompanied their songs in a performance of original and improvisational compositions as the sun set on the longest day of the year.
...MORECommunications Intern: Charlie O’Brien
Charlie Rae O’Brien is the summer 2017 Communications Intern for Freshkills Park. She is from Westfield, New Jersey, and she is a rising junior at The Ohio State University, majoring in Strategic Communications with minors in Business and History.
What are you working on?
...MORERun Freshkills Park with New York Road Runners
This summer, New York Road Runners is organizing two free exploratory runs or walks through Freshkills Park! The 3.1 mile and 6.2 mile courses both start and finish near the center of the closed 2,200-acre park. People of all ages are invited to run or walk on trails that take you along waterways and over the hills of the former Fresh Kills Landfill.
...MOREProgramming Associate: Terrance Caviness
Terrance Caviness is a seasonal Programming Associate at Freshkills Park. He grew up in Syracuse, New York and recently graduated from SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry with a degree in Environmental Biology.
...MOREParks Built on Landfills are More Popular Than You Think
Freshkills Park is the largest landfill-to-park project in the world, but it isn’t the first or the last of its kind. Over the past few decades, cities all over the world have converted closed landfills into parks. With planning and innovative engineering, these projects have increased the amount of open green space in urban areas, improving the environment and increasing the quality of life for residents.
...MOREFarther Afield: Seattle Bans Food Waste
Seattle Public Utilities (SPU) has recently added a $1 fine for having more than 10% of a household’s trash composed of food waste. Passed on January 1, 2015, this comes as the next step in Seattle’s attempt to remove compostable materials from ending up in landfills, following the city’s previous 2005 ban on recyclable materials under a similar $1 fine program and the encouragement of residents to compost via SPU-provided compost bins.
...MOREFarther Afield: NYC Curbside Gardens
Well known to city dwellers, the urban landscape is dominated by impervious hard surfaces that require manmade sewage infrastructure to handle all rainfall and storm water management. In normally functioning environments, soil and vegetation absorbs this water and retains it to a certain capacity before runoff is generated.
...MOREFrom Behind the Mounds: New York City Department of Parks and Recreation’s Capital Project Tracker
On Friday October 24, 2014 New York City Department of Parks and Recreation launched the Capital Project Tracker, an interactive map of all active Parks Department projects. There currently are over 400 active projects on the Tracker, with a timeline of each project and dedicated sections including Design, Procurement, and Construction phases.
...MOREFarther Afield: Staten Island Leads the Charge in Citywide Composting
The Department of Education and the Department of Sanitation jointly run the “Organics Collection Program,” which diverts organic materials such as food scraps, soiled paper, yard waste out of the landfill stream and into regional collection centers and the Anaerobic Digest-er Eggs, which extract methane from decomposing organic matter into energy.
...MOREFrom Behind the Mounds: First Days With Freshkills Park
There is no more exciting time to join a new working environment than when a huge event such as Freshkills Park’s annual Sneak ‘Peak’ is around the corner!
Eva Neves and myself, Rachel Boeglin, are members of this year’s Conservation Corps with the New York City Parks Department.
...MOREFrom Behind the Mounds: A New Trend or NYC Parks Tradition?
You may have read our recent blog post about the herd of goats that were used in Freshkills Park to clear the invasive reed Phragmites, but did you know that goats were once a common fixture in New York City?
...MOREFarther Afield: Urban Heat Island Effect and the City
Summer 2014 has been quite moderate compared to other humid, sweat-drenched days of summer past. However, this relatively mild summer may just be an outlier. According to Climate-Central, not-for-profit climate research think tank, urban areas have increased their summertime temperatures an average of 2f during the day and 4f overnight.
...MOREA Campfire That Can Light up Your Christmas Tree
Imagine warming your hands at a campfire that is also lighting up a Christmas tree in DUMBO.
What’s going on here?
Have you ever felt a regular light bulb after it has been on for a while? It’s hot because a side effect of using electricity is that some of the energy is wasted as heat.
...MORENew Recycling Facility Demonstrates Sustainability
