Greenbelt Native Plant Center

Tour Freshkills Park With The Urban Park Rangers

Staten Island’s former landfill is becoming Freshkills Park and on April 4, its gates open for guided tours. The site is being transformed into one of the next great regional parks of the 21st century. Tours are available from April through November and are led by the Urban Park Rangers.

Freshkills Park is one of the most ambitious public works projects in the world, combining state-of-the-art ecological restoration techniques with extraordinary settings for recreation, public art and facilities for many sports and programs, all on approximately 2,200 acres of new parkland. While nearly 45 percent of the land was once used for landfill operations, the remainder of the site is currently composed of wetlands, open waterways and unfilled lowland areas. The tops of the landfill mounds offer spectacular vistas of the expansive site as well as views of downtown Manhattan.

The Urban Park Rangers will discuss the history, engineering and landscape design of the park, including the abundant flora and fauna that are returning to the area. The tour will take visitors to the site of the future South Park, with its views of La Tourette Park and all four of the Staten Island bridges. In addition, sightseers will have the opportunity to view the future North Park, with its panoramic landscape overlooking the Travis neighborhood, the tidal creeks of the adjacent William T. Davis Wildlife Refuge and the Manhattan skyline.

Tours last 90 minutes, are free of charge and open to all, but seating is limited. To register or to learn about private group tour options, call 311 or visit http://www.nyc.gov/parks/freshkillspark.

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