This Used To Be My Dumping Ground

We never thought it would happen, but shows what we know. The 2,200-acre Fresh Kills Landfill on Staten Island really is going to be turned into New York City's largest park. The Parks Department has already put 14 feet of soil over the dump since 2001 and is now ready to start giving tours!

Fresh Kills Park will be nearly triple the size of Central Park and is expected to take more than 30 years and hundreds of millions of dollars to complete, though the city intends to open parts of it to the public starting next year. The plan for the park includes cycling trails, tennis courts, greenhouses, stables, birding platforms, a sports stadium and a 9/11 memorial — an earthen sculpture as long as the twin towers were tall, to be built on the mound where rescuers sifted through the World Trade Center wreckage.

Can't wait to go and check out the future of Staten Island? Why not check out the City's offical plan for the new park in the meantime? And the Times mentions our favorite part of the new park: "Some of the machinery will be left behind sort of as an added bonus, to show people what it was like. Some of the barges that used to take trash out will be floating gardens." It'll be like "Floating Island" 2!

Fresh Kills Grasses by D-Trubble from his Fresh Kills Trip set.