Freshkills Park Blog

At Freshkills Park, like parks around the world, we cancelled our in-person programming to protect public safety in Spring 2020. We immediately looked for other, virtual ways to share Freshkills Park’s message of ecological restoration and support students and teachers in navigating the confusing new world of distance learning.

Did you know that there are over 35 species of sparrows throughout North America?  About a third of the species are fairly common throughout the continent.  The most common and easily recognized sparrow is the House Sparrow.  They are native to Eurasia and northern Africa and were introduced into Central Park in 1850. 

Explore the native grasslands, restored wetlands, and natural woodlands of South Mound at Freshkills Park like never before.  This video leads you through a 2.5 mile loop through the back hills of South Mound, virtually on foot! 

Before there was the Draft Master plan in 2001, South Mound was the first of 4 mounds capped in 1996. 

Each year at Discovery Days and during Transportation Alternative’s annual Staten Island Bike The Boros event, thousands of people ride bikes around Freshkills Park’s East Mound.

Join us to explore the grasslands of East Park on this virtual bike ride that takes you on a 3.5

Join us for a kayak tour on Freshkills Creek. See the shoreline grasses and mounds of Freshkills Park and experience the water while someone else paddles!

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Return to Discovery Week @ Home

For your next movie night, check out the Freshkills FreshFlicks staff picks. Take a trip down memory lane with a Fresh Perspective, with films that are just as environmentally relevant today!

Explore different environmental topics by clicking on the titles in our queue.

As part of Virtual Discovery Day at Freshkills Park, download and print an activity sheet from Freshkills Park and our partners to explore nature at home. Enjoy coloring sheets, scavenger hunts, word searches, animal facts, and more. Simply click on any of the images to open them in a new tab as a PDF, then print and explore!

Welcome to the Discovery Week @ Home Virtual STEAM Activity Fair!

Click on the pictures below to explore and try different activities.

Thank you to our partners at MakerSpace NYC, Parks @ Home Jr., and the Staten Island Museum for sharing activities.

In 2018, Freshkills Park researchers conducted a study to learn more about grassland bird nesting preferences. Currently, a significantly greater number of grassland birds are nesting in an area known as East Mound than in the other areas. One species of special concern, the grasshopper sparrow, has been found nesting exclusively in East Mound.

In the Summer of 2019, Freshkills Park researchers set up wildlife cameras to record animal activity on site, in hopes of capturing footage of the red foxes that call the former landfill home. The camera footage shows a snapshot of some of the larger mammals that inhabit the park, with a few surprise guests!

Every year, Osprey (Pandion halibuts) make their summer homes at Freshkills Park, where they build nests on high structures above the Park’s creeks. They hunt for fish in the waterways and raise their young. Since 2018, parks researchers have been monitoring the breeding success of the Osprey at Freshkills Park.

Make your own kinetic paper animals with Deborah from MakerSpace NYC! How many things can you make from paper? From just one piece of copy paper, you can create a flying animal. Cut pieces and adhere them together so you can manipulate the wings of a paper bird, dinosaur – or any animal you can imagine!

Moth Painting is a time-based painting-photography hybrid that serves as a visual record of the moth and insect population of Freshkills Park. Artist Ash Ferlito suspended a large sheet from a plastic framework and then shined UV light on the material to attract insects on the panel to document them.

Join artist James Powers for a plein-air drawing lesson on North Mound looking out at Main Creek and the William T. Davis Wildlife Refuge. James is the artist and instructor behind Fastnet, a 20-foot shipping container that he outfitted as a gallery and outdoor drawing studio from which he teaches landscape drawing workshops at Freshkills Park.

Join Mr. Ted Nabavi, Director of Waste Management Engineering at DSNY, for a behind-the-scenes tour of the Fresh Kills Landfill Leachate Treatment Plant. Leachate, a landfill by-product, is created when water seeps through solid waste. Leachate treatment includes biological and chemical treatment to remove harmful constituents so the treated water can be safely discharged.

Your next online meeting can happen at Freshkills Park! Download the images below to virtually visit the waterways, grasslands, and sweeping vistas of Freshkills Park.

How to add a virtual background to Zoom:

1. Click on the images below to open the full-size image in a new tab.

Welcome to Discovery Week!

There are so many different ways to Discover Freshkills Park and this week we hope you will find out about some that are new for you.  By way of a quick introduction, we have posted a series of three videos that provide a snapshot of what Freshkills Park is and what it is becoming as it continues to develop. 

Join us for a special tour of the construction at North Park Phase 1, the first Freshkills Park project to be built within the former Fresh Kills Landfill boundary. See the progress on building the bird tower and the wetland observation deck as well as the spectacular views of Main Creek.

At 2,200 acres, Freshkills Park is almost three times the size of Central Park and the largest park to be developed in New York City in over 100 years. It also has a significant history as the site of the Fresh Kills Landfill, which was the largest landfill in the world before closing in 2001.

Freshkills Park Field R/D presents On Fieldwork, a presentation and discussion by the artist Nancy Nowacek of a site-specific 360 video created for the Field R/D program at Freshkills in 2018.

Parks were originally conceived of as spaces for the opposite of work.