Results tagged “freshkillslandfill”

Staten Island is not having a good week. In addition to the outrage over the weird ad copy appearing in part of a Virgin Mobile campaign, the borough’s president has also called for an ice cream boycott. Last Friday, a perturbed James P. Molinaro wrote a letter to Scott and Kim Myles, husband and wife co-owners of the Queens-based 5 Boroughs Ice Cream company. Someone had shown Molinaro a copy of a flyer printed off the 5B website, meant to help persuade local specialty food storeowners to carry the ice cream. There are currently eight 5B flavors, all made in small batches; each is named after a NYC locale or neighborhood. For Molinaro and many Staten Islanders, the offending ice cream flavor is Staten Island Landfill- a swirly mix of brownies, fudge, crunchies, and cherries in a vanilla base. Molinaro objects to what he considers old hat outer borough typecasting; the Staten Island Advance quotes his letter to the company as saying "I am hard-pressed to think of a more insulting and derogatory attack in the name of consumerism.”

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.

In case you missed our reminder last weekend, this weekend is Open House New York. Some of the sites requiring reservations are already full, but with so many sites available for touring, there's almost something for everyone.

The joke alludes to Fresh Kills Landfill, which closed in 2001 after more than 50 years of dumping. Gothamist hasn't been to the areas directly surrounding the landfill, but how bad could it be if it's a possible Olympic venue.