How to Love a Landfill: June 20th at Freshkills Park
We get a lot of raised eyebrows when we first talk about the Freshkills Park Project with the uninitiated. Some folks are put off by the idea of landfills in general, and some are familiar with the stigma the site has given Staten Island over the past half century.
For skeptics and true believers alike, we’ve got a terrific event coming up Saturday, June 20th. Robin Nagle, the Department of Sanitation’s Anthropologist-in-Residence, will be giving a a talk and leading a conversation on top of the North Mound about why the Freshkills Park site deserves our love–and why she calls it ‘sacred space.’ She’s written an essay that digs into some of the themes she’ll be touching on as we sit out on top of the mound on chairs, blankets and yoga mats. You’re welcome to sign up for the event whether it sounds agreeable, provocative or flighty to you–at the least, you’ll get a free tour of the site out of it, and at the most, contribute to a healthy discussion. This is only our second event like this, but last month’s reading on top of North Mound was fantastic.
Robin is no lightweight: she teaches anthropology and urban studies at NYU and has been Sanitation’s official anthropologist-in-residence since 2006. Over the past several years, she’s been working to establish a New York City Sanitation Museum. She’s thought A LOT about garbage, the Department of Sanitation and Fresh Kills Landfill and has been featured in the New York Times and an episode of This American Life on garbage. We’re pretty excited about her talk.
Saturday, June 20th, 12pm-3pm
A Parks bus will pick up attendees at the St. George Ferry Terminal at 12pm, take them to the event, and deliver them back to the terminal at 2:30 or 3 pm. This event, like all of our events, is free, but space is limited. Contact Martha at martha.powers@parks.nyc.gov to reserve a spot.
