Freshkills Park Blog

By early April, ospreys had arrived at Freshkills Park after spending the winter in warmer places. Nicknamed “fish hawks,” these large raptors like being close to shallow water for easy access to food. The birds quickly got to work building their summer homes on tall platforms close to the creeks.

The Freshkills Park project is located on the west shore of Staten Island. Connected to the rest of New York City by the Staten Island Ferry and Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, this southernmost borough has become increasingly known for its cultural attractions and dining options.

Visiting landmarks is a beloved pastime for many in the pursuit of sights, photographs and wonder. But what constitutes a landmark? The National Park Service defines National Historic Landmarks (NHL) as nationally significant historic places designated as exceptional by the Secretary of the Interior “because of their abilities to illustrate U.S.

Freshkills Park will offer a Discovery Day on Sunday September 30. This free event is a chance to explore normally closed areas of the park and experience the landscape and views the landfill-to-park project has to offer. Hundreds of acres and and miles of trails will be open for a day of bicycling, tours, and activities for all ages.

This summer, Freshkills Park offered creative workshops about plants at the Greenbelt Nature Center. Using art as a platform, these workshops engaged families and individuals in learning about the relationships between native plants, invasive plants, pollinators, and food plants. The series of two pigment workshops and two plantable paper workshops were open to participants of all ages.

Freshkills Park: Field R/D is a project to develop a visionary, community-responsive residency program for the former NYC landfill. Since April 2017, Field R/D artists have been working on site in flexible, collaborative engagements with the landscape. In January 2018, the project was named one of sixty awardees of the Rubin Foundation’s grants toward their Art and Social Justice Initiative.

This summer, NYC Parks staff launched a biological filtering dock, or “living” dock, at Freshkills Park. This dock will help clean the water within the site’s network of tidal creeks using native plants and shellfish. The dock will also increase biodiversity, which makes the park’s tidal wetland ecosystem more resilient in the face of climate change and storm events.

A new research project is being developed at Freshkills, and it’s a noisy one. Staff and interns will partner with members of the NYC Parks Wildlife Unit to place sound meters around the park to compare ambient noise levels between two areas.

The four-day Reclaimed Lands Conference brought together researchers, practitioners, planners, ecologists, artists, designers, community groups, and students to bridge the gaps between disciplines and productively explore the issues and initiatives surrounding these post-industrial reclaimed landscapes. With field trips and panels at NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program at NYU Tisch, participants discussed topics like monitoring changes in biodiversity, designing ecologically sustainable re-development, engaging residents in stewardship, and transforming public perceptions.

Compelled by alternative functions, artist Bill Jenkins’ practice reconstitutes utilitarian objects and places. In the exhibition Image/Conduit, currently on view at the Freshkills Park Studio + Gallery, he investigates this curiosity through the topography of Freshkills Park.

The exhibition features video work titled Scans, investigating the relationship between decades of compressed garbage placed at Fresh Kills with the picturesque grassy hills that compose the landscape of Freshkills Park.

Work by several artists will be installed and realized at Freshkills Park this summer as part of the art-research project Field R/D. This phase of the expansive and collaborative project is made possible thanks to a Shelley and Donald Rubin Foundation Art and Social Justice Initiative grant award.

Late summer and early fall are great times to visit Freshkills Park! As the park is built in phases, tours and events offer opportunities to explore sections of the site before they open. Whether kayaking the creeks, photographing the landscape, or hiking and bicycling along miles of meadows, these programs invite visitors to experience and learn about the landfill-to-park project.

Urban Omnibus, Freshkills Park, and the jury panel are pleased to announce the winner of the inaugural Urban Wild Writer Residency. This residency seeks to bring a first-hand perspective to topics that include the environment, technology, urban life, nature, and waste.

The wide, open grasslands of Freshkills Park serve as an important habitat to a variety of wildlife. One species that depends on these areas is the American kestrel – the smallest member of the falcon family. These birds nest inside cavities of isolated trees scattered throughout open fields, and feed by swooping down to capture prey among the grasses such as large insects or small animals.

What better way to explore Freshkills Park than with an artist-led drawing workshop in a shipping container?

Freshkills Park is currently home to Fastnet, a shipping container converted into a studio and project space. The container was purchased by artist James Powers in 2015.

A small Bodega coffee, a bagel with scallion cream cheese, and a leftover pizza slice. This may sound like the delicious lunch of a New Yorker, but we often forget that our everyday treasures are lined with what we consider trash.

This summer, Freshkills Park is offering creative workshops about plants at the Greenbelt Nature Center. Using art as a platform, these workshops will engage participants in exploring the importance of native plants, as well as the relationships between native and invasive plants, in relation to the Freshkills Park project.

“It was one of those days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade.”  ― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

The briskness and overcast skies on Sunday, June 3 proved to be invigorating for the hundreds of enthusiastic visitors who attended Discovery Day throughout the event.

Caitlyn Simon is an Environmental Science Intern for Freshkills Park. She was born and raised in NYC and lives in Park Slope, Brooklyn when she is not attending Amherst College in Massachusetts. She is a rising senior double-majoring in Environmental Studies and Geology.

Summer is a great season for birdwatching! As the weather warms up, migrating species return from their wintering grounds. Birds can be seen foraging for food, building nests, displaying for mates, and defending their territories. Sometimes you can hear them calling to mates and declaring their territories to potential rivals.