Freshkills Park Blog

Earlier this summer, I had the opportunity to join all of the NYC Parks summer interns and listen to Commissioner Mitchell J. Silver speak on the history and the exciting future of New York City parks. He talked about several initiatives including increasing park-neighborhood connectivity through Parks Without Borders, refreshing city pools through Cool Pools, and giving underserved communities the renovated parks they deserve through the Community Parks Initiative.

Christian Prince is the Freshkills Park Art Program Intern for the summer of 2019. He is from Washington, DC and graduated from Vassar College.

What are you working on, and why do you think it’s interesting/important?

I’m assisting in the development of arts programs including installations in the park and working on materials for exhibitions at the Studio + Gallery.

Bees, butterflies, hummingbirds, and bats are just a few examples of the animals that we call pollinators and that we rely on for approximately one third of our food supply and 90% of our world’s flowering plants. When visiting plants for food or shelter, pollinators attract pollen – often in fascinating ways – to themselves and later deposit it on the tops of flowers of the same species, thereby allowing for the creation of new seeds and reproduction.

Damaris Borden is Freshkills Park’s Climate Change Intern for the summer of 2019. Having grown up in the Pacific Northwest, she is passionate about improving people’s access to nature and its therapeutic effects. She is a rising senior at Bard College where she is pursuing a bachelor’s degree in Environmental and Urban Studies with a focus in economics, policy, and development, as well as a master’s degree in Climate Science and Policy.

Freshkills Park is a story of environmental reclamation, the impacts of which reach far beyond the park’s boundaries. In reclaiming the land once occupied by the world’s largest landfill for forests, wetlands, and new grasslands, Staten Islanders at large have reclaimed their fresh air, scenic views, and recreation opportunities.

Beautiful sunny weather and clear blue skies provided the perfect conditions to welcome visitors to Freshkills Park on June 30 for the first ever Open Hours. As construction continues in North Park Phase One, this event allowed hundreds of visitors the chance to see the rolling hills and diverse wildlife of Freshkills for themselves before the park can officially open.

On June 25, Freshkills Park staff and local Staten Island residents came together at the Greenbelt Nature Center to participate in the first ever “Grasslands Dinner.” The evening centered on the history of grasslands in the United States, the biodiversity of plants and animals associated with these habitats, and how Freshkills Park is helping to bring grassland back to New York City.

NYC Parks broke ground on the North Park project in 2017 and the construction continues. When complete, pathways and observation areas will invite visitors to walk, hike and bike in the first open section of Freshkills Park inside the landfill boundary.

Galen Oettel is an Environmental Science Intern for Freshkills Park. Born and raised in New York City, he’s currently a rising junior at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. Galen is majoring in Environmental Science and plans to pursue a graduate degree in Geographic Information Systems (GIS).

Capturing Change: Freshkills Park Photographs

On view June 15 – September 8, 2019

For years, photographers have been visiting closed sections of Freshkills Park to document the unique combination of nature and infrastructure. Their work explores the variety of changes taking place as habitats are established and the park is built in phases over decades.

On Sunday June 30th, you can bike, run, walk, or birdwatch in normally closed areas of Freshkills Park! Open Hours will take place from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., with over six miles of roadways and trails providing access to views of wildlife, wetland creeks, and engineered meadows.

This year, artists are leading drawing workshops inside a shipping container at Freshkills Park. Fastnet was purchased by artist James Powers in 2015. Since then, it has been used as a gallery, sauna, and gathering space. At Freshkills Park, Fastnet is fitted with drawing horses for free observational drawing workshops, available for the general public!

In 2016, Arihunt and Avni Garg participated in a tour of Freshkills Park and learned about waste management in New York City. “Although the Sanitation and Parks Departments were working very hard, it seemed to be an uphill battle to keep our city clean,” said Avni, a freshman at Stuyvesant High School.

This spring, staff and interns will continue studying the grasslands at Freshkills Park. The research project is working to characterize the structure and diversity of the grasslands on two of the capped landfill mounds. Large populations of grassland birds have been nesting at East Mound, but not North Mound.

We’re excited to announce this year’s spring and summer calendar of public programs at Freshkills Park! These free tours and events offer unique opportunities to visit and learn about the landfill-to-park project. Whether kayaking through the creeks or hiking and bicycling along miles of meadows, you’ll experience large sections of the park before they open.

The Freshkills Park Team is looking for a Development Intern, Climate Change Research Intern, Public Art Intern, and Education Intern to join the staff at the project’s lower Manhattan headquarters this summer. These four part-time positions will involve site visits and provide opportunities to collaboratively contribute to ongoing park planning and project implementation.

This month marks the anniversary of the Fresh Kills Landfill closing in 2001. The last barge of municipal solid waste arrived on March 22, 2001, 53 years after landfill operations began. Over the years, Fresh Kills had steadily become New York City’s primary landfill.

This month, Freshkills Park’s Cait Field and Mariel Villeré presented the panel, “Urban Ecosystem Services: Scales of Cultivation” at the Nature, Ecology & Society Colloquium at the CUNY Graduate Center, with speakers Annie Weinmayr, Jessica Hoch, and Melissa Zavala. The panel explored variations on the definition of “nature” within the built environment and how expanding that definition can shape new strategies for enhancing ecosystem services in our cities.

We are excited to announce the winners of the first annual Capturing Change Photography Contest! Dozens of photographers submitted more than 100 photographs, and contest judge Natalie Conn was impressed by the variety and complexity of the images. Conn reviewed the photographs anonymously and evaluated them based on creativity, composition, content, and artistic merit.

Freshkills Park’s ongoing Field R/D project has been named one of fifty-seven awardees of the Rubin Foundation’s grants as part of their Art and Social Justice Initiative. Three artists have been selected to participate in the second cohort to co-develop research-based projects in the visual, performing, and media-based arts.