Freshkills turns Staten Island's landfill story toward parkland

Freshkills Park gives Staten Island a landscape-change story too specific to flatten into “former landfill.” The 2,200-acre park project sits on the site of the Fresh Kills Landfill, which closed in 2001. Since then, the land has been engineered with soil layers and infrastructure while becoming a place for wildlife, recreation, science, education, and art.

Access is part of the story rather than a footnote. North Park Phase 1 is open, while the interior is available through scheduled park programs that give people an early look at the larger conversion.

Around that evolving center are New Springville Greenway, Owl Hollow Soccer Fields, Schmul Park, creeks, wetlands, forests, and restoration work that includes 360 acres of wetlands.

Freshkills is civic memory built into the ground, with public access arriving in pieces. It is open space, old infrastructure, and a long conversion toward parkland all at once, and the still-in-progress quality is part of what makes the place feel honest.

For Staten Island, that makes the park both hopeful and specific: creeks, wetlands, capped land, open sections, scheduled programs, and a landscape still becoming something new.