The NYC Department of Environmental Protection‘s Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant is already home of some of the most distinctive architecture in the City, the onion-dome digesters designed by Polshek Partnership Architects, as well as a lovely and serene Nature Walk designed by artist George Trakas. 

Garbage on Roosevelt Island—the 147-acre strip of land lying in the East River between Manhattan and Queens—is disposed of through a remarkable system of underground pneumatic tubes that was constructed in 1975.  The Island’s 14,000 residents empty their trash into a series of garbage chutes which are emptied into the pneumatic pipes several times daily, carrying it at 30 miles per hour to a transfer station at the end of the island.

Tomorrow is Earth Day, and Mayor Bloomberg is expected to sign new legislation into action that will substantially update New York City’s recycling program for the first time since 1989.  The biggest addition to the program will be the Department of Sanitation‘s (DSNY) eventual capacity to recycle all rigid plastic containers, including those used to hold laundry detergent, motor oil and yogurt. 

Last month’s professional photographers’ tour of the Freshkills Park site yielded some beautiful results.  We’ve posted a selection of photos by Linda Jaquez, Vincent Verdi and Michael Bonanno in our flickr stream; photographs by Jarred Sutton are posted on his website.

27-acre Stearns Quarry Park opened in 2009 in the Bridgeport neighborhood of Chicago.  The site was used as a limestone quarry from 1833 to 1969 by the Illinois Stone and Lime Company, after which it served as a municipal landfill: from 1969 to 1974, dirt, gravel, brick and construction debris were delivered to the site, filling the hole excavated by mining operations.

The New York Times runs a very informative piece on the success and prevalence of waste-to-energy plants in Denmark, where they constitute the mainstream of garbage disposal and produce a substantial amount of the energy supply.  Denmark hosts 29 of these facilities, which burn non-recyclable garbage to produce heat and electricity while filtering and capturing pollutants like dioxin and mercury rather than emitting them.  

Through an Artist in Residence (AIR) Program at Recology San Francisco, artists are invited to spend four months working in studio space locate at the company’s 44-acre Solid Waste Transfer and Recycling Center, where most of San Francisco’s garbage and recyclables are waylaid and sorted before being sent to a landfill or recycling plant. 

Through an agreement with the State, the City of New York now has sole custody of  Governor’s Island and has released its park and public space master plan for the $220 million redevelopment of the 172-acre site.  The tantalizing plan has been prepared by Dutch urban design and landscape architecture firm West 8 in partnership with Rogers Marvel Architects, Diller, Scofidio + Renfro, SMWM and Urban Design+ and features a 2.2 mile waterfront promenade, picnic and event lawns, a grove of trees hung with hammocks, man-made marshes and steep, artificial hills that will help to create dramatic overlooks and vistas of lower Manhattan. 

If you’re not a biologist or a wildlife hobbyist, it can be hard to understand what the big deal is about birds, bats and other creatures at the Freshkills Park site—why are our birding tours always booked months in advance?  Why so much concern—huge sections of environmental review documents, regulatory review on issues of habitat fragmentation—for the welfare of populations of small animals, when the site is so big?

We’re very excited to present our most recent phase of design work, in South Park, tonight at the Jewish Community Center of Staten Island.  The Freshkills Park development team and park designers from James Corner Field Operations will be there to virtually guide the gathered crowd the first phase of South Park, which will host softball fields, hiking and biking paths, play areas, a parking lot and flexible event spaces.

Gas Works Park in Seattle, WA is located on the 19.1-acre site of a former Seattle Gas Light Company coal gasification plant.  The plant opened in 1906 and closed in 1956 when the City switched to natural gas.  The site was abandoned for several years until the City purchased it in 1962; a design combining elements of historic preservation and park design was commissioned from landscape architect Richard Haag in the early 1970s.

Scientists at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden (BBG) recently completed a 20-year comprehensive study of plant biodiversity in metropolitan New York.  The impressive New York Metropolitan Flora project has cataloged plant populations in every county within a 50-mile radius of New York City. 

Washington, D.C.’s Department of the Environment instituted one of the nation’s first bag taxes in January, charging 5 cents for each paper or plastic bag issued in bakeries, delis, grocery stores, drug stores, department stores and convenience stores.  The result has been a dramatic drop in the number of plastic bags distributed:  from a 2009 monthly average of 22.5 million bags to just 3 million in January. 

Last Sunday’s bird-watching tour at the Freshkills Park site was eventful.  Not only did we catch a glimpse of a snow goose fishing around the storm water basin on East Mound, we also noticed this osprey sitting in a nest atop the tall perch in Main Creek. 

As part of its waterfront redevelopment plan, multi-governmental agency Waterfront Toronto is currently in construction of Sherbourne Park, a $28 million storm water treatment facility and public park, near the Lake Ontario shore.  Much of the water treatment infrastructure will be visible to park visitors, making more transparent the purification process through features like an ultraviolet treatment pavilion, dramatic channelizing sculptures and biofiltration beds.

A new, 16,000 square foot skate park is now under construction near the 1964 World’s Fair site in Flushing Meadows Corona Park.  In a subtle nod to the mash-up of architectural styles typical of many historic World’s Fairs, the course will feature elements inspired by popular street skating spots around New York City:

• Original Brooklyn Banks 9-stair replica rail
• Union Square rail/steps
• Police Plaza 7-stair rail/various stairs
• Ziegfeld ledge
• Chrystie Park ledge
• Exchange Place street gap
• JFK Banks
• Con Ed Banks
• Pyramid ledges
• Flushing Meadows Park ledge-over-the-grate replica
• Various rails in public parks and the aesthetics of many of the spots in Brooklyn

The course is being built in advance of the Maloof Money Cup, a skate competition that will be held June 5th and 6th; the competiion donated the course through the Parks Department’s Adopt-a-Park program.

The Freshkills Park Talks lecture series continues on Tuesday with a talk and slideshow by  Nathan Kensinger, a photographer and filmmaker whose work focuses on the abandoned and post-industrial edges of New York City.  He’ll be sharing stories of sites along the Gowanus Canal, inside the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and at Fresh Kills, among others, while walking us through his beautiful images.

Monday, March 22nd marked the nine year anniversary of the closure of Fresh Kills Landfill.  To reflect on that milestone, we pulled this timeline (PDF, 11MB) of the landfill’s operation from our archives.  It was put together for the catalogue of the exhibit called “Fresh Kills: Artists Respond to the Closure of the Staten Island Landfill,” mounted at the Snug Harbor Cultural Center‘s Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art in 2001.

Rising Currents: Projects for New York’s Waterfront opens today at the MoMA.  The exhibit features architectural proposals transforming New York City’s harbor and coastline in response to sea level rise.  Last fall’s architects-in-residence program at P.S.1 brought together five interdisciplinary teams to produce plans, models, drawings and analytical models that now make up the show.

Ecofreek is a search engine for materials exchange and classified sites that list objects and materials that are available for free.  The site searches 45 online sources, including craigslist, Freecycle and Oodle, is searchable by city and/or state and offers links to Google Maps indicating locations of listed goods.