Tags: New York City

This year Freshkills Park has taken Discovery Day virtual and is excited to host activities and experiences created by the Freshkills Park team and community partners. Near or far, join us for our first “Discovery Week @ Home.”  Throughout the week, learn more about the history, wildlife, recreation, education, and art at the park through virtual experiences.  

Over the years of Freshkills Park’s transformation from landfill to park, its name has taken on a variety of meanings. Though some still associate “fresh kills” with the former landfill, many have begun to recognize its significance as a symbol of renewal, rebirth, and rejuvenation.

It is an exciting time for landfill-to-park projects in New York City. In addition to Freshkills Park’s forthcoming North Park Phase One development, the city saw its largest state park to date open in July on top of two former landfills.

Discover Freshkills Park and experience the unique landscape and spectacular views the landfill-to-park project has to offer. This free event is a special opportunity to explore the future park while the site is closed to the public. Hundreds of acres and miles of trails will be open for tours, bicycling, and activities for all ages.

Windows into Freshkills from Slanted Studios on Vimeo.

Windows into Freshkills Park is complete and ready for exhibition! The project is a miniature museum with four interactive dioramas that tell stories of environmental history, technologies, and wildlife at Freshkills Park and its evolution as a new public space.

In April 2017, sixteen U.S. cities participated in the City Nature Challenge (CNC). For this multi-day event, urban residents competed to observe the most species in their city, at the same time collecting data that conveys a snapshot of the local biodiversity.

The NYC Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and Department of Design and Construction (DDC) recently completed the Sweet Brook system, the largest expansion to date of the Staten Island Bluebelt. The Bluebelt is an innovative, ecologically protective and cost-effective stormwater management system that minimizes flooding and improves water quality in 16 watersheds on Staten Island.

In November 2016, Mayor de Blasio reached an agreement to acquire the 11-acre CitiStorage site on the Williamsburg waterfront for $160 million. This parcel was the final piece needed to complete the 27-acre Bushwick-Inlet Park promised to North Brooklyn residents as part of the 2005 Rezoning Action.  

Through a juried process, Slanted Studios & MTN GODS have been selected to develop a public installation that will engage New Yorkers with the evolving Freshkills Park project. Their modular exhibit will tell the story of the park through its history, ecology, design, technology and possibility.

The park will receive $30 million in funding for major capital advancements.

On August 18, Mayor Bill de Blasio, Council Speaker Melissa Mark Viverito, and NYC Parks Commissioner Mitchell J. Silver announced that the City will invest $150 million in major improvements at five large parks under the new Anchor Parks initiative.

Written by Savannah Lust, Freshkills Park Development Intern.

Bok choy and mint are ripe for the picking aboard Swale, Mary Mattingly’s floating food forest project that is docked at Yankee Pier on Governor’s Island until September 15th.

Mary Mattingly is a New York City based visual artist who proclaims in her Manifesto that “art and utopian thought” are capable of cultivating “systematic social change.”

Ask people to name an animal that lives in New York City, and chances are they’ll pick one of the following: Rats, pigeons, or cockroaches.

And they’ll probably have some horror stories to tell about them.

Now, we could go on and on here at the Freshkills Park office about how there are thousands of different animal species living within the boundaries of NYC, including many that are rare, but today we’d like to take a minute to highlight some aspects of those lesser-loved, often only known for their traits that are in conflict with human society, animals that call NYC home.

Where does a park end and a neighborhood begin? For many parks in New York City, the line has been pretty rigid. Tall gates and fences have separated a number of the city’s parks and playgrounds from adjoining sidewalks, creating literal and symbolic divides between people and green spaces.

For the past year, students at the Frances Perkins Academy in Brooklyn took a deep dive into New York City’s trash. The partnership was part of the Center for Urban Pedagogy’s Urban Investigations program. Students research pertinent issues in their community then, with the help of a Teaching Artist, learn how to share their information in a meaningful way.

Once an abandoned area, Brooklyn Bridge Park slowly transitioned into a model destination for environmental science, green design and public recreation. In September 2015, Brooklyn Bridge Park Conservancy opened the Environmental Education Center located at 99 Plymouth Street.  The Center features interactive programming related to the park’s historic identity, sustainable construction and ecological implications with noteworthy highlights such as the touch tank and the structural model of the Brooklyn Bridge Park.

On Saturday, May 7th, Freshkills Park’s Manager for Programs, Arts and Grants Mariel Villere moderated a panel at NADA New York called “Models of Practice: New territories and frameworks for public art.” The speakers were La Casita Verde President Brooke Singer, Container Artist Residency founder Maayan Strauss, and NYC Department of Cultural Affairs Digital Communications Manager Diya Vij.

Freshkills Park will offer Discovery Day on May 15th from 11am to 4pm. During this free public event, 700 acres of the otherwise closed site will be open for outdoor recreation, providing opportunities to explore and learn about the landfill-to-park project.

Fifteen years ago this week, the final barge of household garbage arrived at Fresh Kills Landfill. To celebrate this milestone, the website’s new interactive landfill-to-park timeline illustrates almost 100 years of changes in the area.

The last barge to Fresh Kills marked the end of 53 years of landfill operations.

The work of Mierle Laderman Ukeles, the artist-in-residence for the NYC Department of Sanitation for the past 30+ years, is featured in a new book edited by Kari Conte titled “Seven Work Ballets.” According to Sternberg Press, the book focuses on a series of seven grand-scale collaborative performances that took place between 1983 and 2012 in New York, Pittsburgh, Givors, Rotterdam, and Tokamachi.

Freshkills Park will offer Discovery Day events on May 15th and June 26th, 2016 from 11am to 4pm. During these free events, 700 acres of the otherwise closed site will be open for tours and recreation.