Vacant NYC Lots Host New Green Spaces
The NY Times highlights an effort by 596 Acres, a Brooklyn-based “public education project,” to galvanize community support in order to transform vacant city-owned land into gardens. Claiming that the city owns a collection of vacant land parcels totaling over 1,000 acres, the group, led by Paula Z. Segal, aims to inform community members of their ability to work with the city and non-profits to reshape their neighborhoods.
Using a city a database and working with researchers from the Center for the Study of Brooklyn, 596 Acres created an online map and mobile app with information about the parcels, including which agencies own them and their contact information. It is their hope that by making this information more widely available, more people will become involved in the effort because the resources are right in front of them.
There remains concern about the temporary status of the gardens. Some worry about the plots gaining legal recognition and the city losing opportunities to develop affordable housing. Others worry that once a garden is finally established it may be required to move immediately after. For this reason, and with grants from various fundraising organizations, 596 Acres has emphasized the mobility of the gardens and the ability to relocate them entirely if the city wants access to the land. The plants are planted in raised beds that sit atop forklift pallets.
(via NYT)
Garden mulch from beer bottles
The recent closure of a town landfill in Tennessee has spurred an innovation in the afterlife of one common discard: beer bottles. Faced with the prospect of high tipping fees associated with hauling its waste elsewhere, the Cumberland County Recycling Center purchased a glass grinder which pulverizes heavy bottles and jars – a heavy component of the town’s waste – into fine gravel, dust, and mulch-like products. Smooth enough to handle safely, these products can be used as landscaping material and can even be mixed with road salt to treat icy roads.
Recycling glass into mulch has economic benefits, too. The town sells its pulverized glass product back to its residents, who benefit from a mulch that doesn’t break down. The town has almost doubled its annual revenue from recycling efforts since the purchase of the pulverizing machine.
(via Atlantic Cities)
Ancient Roman landfill a model for modern-day reclamation
A recent look at a centuries-old landfill – the eighth hill of Rome – presents new insight into the variety of uses and cultural identities reclaimed landfills today might strive toward. On Places, architect Michael Ezban explores the history and current status of Monte Testaccio as an integral part of the Roman urban fabric. As a depository for the shards of millions of olive oil-transporting clay vessels, known as amphorae, Monte Testaccio reached a height of over 100 feet throughout several centuries. Because of its composition, this otherwise inactive landfill has become an active and useful part of the urban landscape in the centuries since. It has been a material stockpile, housed wine cellars, served as a setting for passion plays, competitive festivities, and military training, and hosted a wide range of both marginalized populations and commercial activities at its base.
In Ezban’s article, Freshkills Park is mentioned in particular as an example of modern reclamation that similarly “integrates multiple functions and constituencies” in its design.
As a historical model, Monte Testaccio provides a particularly interesting case study, reflecting the many possibilities inherent in contemporary aspirations to transform waste landscapes into productive, multivalent spaces.
(via Places: Design Observer)
NYC Wildflower Week: Tour the Greenbelt Native Plant Center, Monday May 14
Starting this weekend, NYC Wildflower Week presents a terrific series of events focused on New York’s open space and rich native plant communities. To celebrate, our partners at the Greenbelt Native Plant Center on Staten Island are welcoming the public next Monday, May 14, on a tour of their facilities.
The Greenbelt Native Plant Center is the only municipal native plant nursery in the country. It is a 13-acre greenhouse, nursery, founder seed and seed bank complex owned and operated by the NYC Department of Parks & Recreation. Over the past fifteen years, the center has grown hundreds of thousands of specimens from locally collected seed of the city’s indigenous flora for use in restoration and replanting projects, and is currently developing bulk seed mixes for the city. The GNPC is a partner in the establishment of the first national native seed bank called Seeds of Success.
The tour is free and open to the public. Space is limited, so advance registration is encouraged.
Monday, May 14 | 10 am – 12 pm
Greenbelt Native Plant Center
GNPC Nursery | 38-08 Victory Blvd, Staten Island
Guide: Timothy Chambers, Nursery Manager, GNPC, NYC Department of Parks & Recreation
Register for the tour
Mexico City’s Trash for Greenpoints program
Continuing with the increasingly popular efforts to become a more sustainable metropolis, Mexico City has initiated a new barter-style market in which residents can trade recyclable materials for locally grown foodstuffs.
The opening of the new government sponsored (website in Spanish) market follows similar events lauded by environmentalists such as the closure of the Bordo Peniente Landfill, and green vertical gardens which we’ve previously blogged about.
Residents may bring materials such as aluminum cans, cardboard and paper, glass, and PET plastic bottles to the market in return for “green points.” These points can be redeemed for agricultural products grown in and around Mexico City such as lettuce, spinach, prickly pears, tomatoes, plants, and flowers.
“The intention is to encourage and support the producers of soil conservation in order to raise public awareness of the local supply,” writes the Ministry. “It’s important to consume local products to avoid large shipments of goods, reduce the carbon footprint, generate fair trade and maintain agricultural lands south of the city.”
Different materials are worth different amounts of “green points.” The market operates once a month and nearly sold out at its grand opening.
(via fastcoexist)
Job Opening
We are looking for a Public Art and Grants Manager to help us in the planning, implementation, coordination and evaluation of public outreach projects that will serve to identify Freshkills Park as the park is being built. Responsibilities also include the development and management of grant applications for project funding.
This is a minimum 1-year position.
Click here for the job description and details on how to apply.
Earth Day Million Trees Stewardship Event
On April 21st, during Earth Day weekend, Freshkills Park hosted our very first volunteer project! Staten Island Boy Scout Packs 5 and 118 (and their parents) tended to the Million Trees planting area in the South Park section of the site.
Equipped with shovels, buckets, and a desire to help the environment, the group of about 25 volunteers weeded the 1/2 acre site, home to 950 infant trees. The newly planted trees were being overtaken by knee-high weeds, infringing on their future growth. The weeding and application of mulch around the base of the trees will help ensure their survival and reduce the need for future maintenance. Mulch – which mimics the ‘blanket’ of leaves deposited on deciduous forest floors – suppresses weed growth, improves soil structure and nutrients, moderates soil temperature, and helps hold in moisture.
The volunteers were assisted by the great staff at DPR’s Natural Areas Volunteers program.
We’ve posted more photos of the Earth Day weekend volunteer project to our flickr.
Freshkills Park 2012 Haiku Contest winners
It is time to announce the winners of our fourth annual Freshkills Park Haiku Contest! April was National Poetry Month, and to celebrate, we asked fans of Freshkills Park to submit a haiku inspired by the park. We split the entries into two categories, Adult and Youth, and our judges selected three Adult winners and two Youth winners.
Adult winners:
In beholders’ eyes,
Beauty born from lesser things,
A park is risen.
-Nicholas Martini
A goose heading north
“Look what they’ve done to Freshkills”
Migration can wait
-Francis Doehner
Bleak, black land, turned green
Lost animals return home
Second chance for man
-Tom Donegan
Youth winners:
Which once was soiled
Now brings out nature’s light here
Orange, pink, and white
-Anisa Lett
Trashy to fancy
I can go horseback riding
Extraordinary
-Kamy Kempton
Congratulations! Thanks to all who participated, and to our judges:
Cynthia Cruz is the author of Ruin (Alice James Books) and The Glimmering Room (Four Way Books). She is the recipient of fellowships from Yaddo, the MacDowell Colony, and a Hodder Fellowship from Princeton University. Her poems have been published in the New Yorker, Paris Review, Boston Review, American Poetry Review, and Kenyon Review among other journals. She lives in Brooklyn and teaches at Sarah Lawrence College.
Nina Darnton has lived and worked in Nigeria, served as Publications Director for the Untied Nations Environment Program (UNEP) in Nairobi, Kenya, been special correspondent for Newsweek and National Public Radio in Warsaw, Poland during the rise of the Solidarity movement, and a feature writer for the New York Times in Madrid, Spain. Back in New York in the 80′s and 90′s, she was an Arts and Leisure writer and movie columnist for the New York Times, chief movie writer for the New York Post, staff writer and fashion critic for Newsweek, and an on-air essayist for the McNeil/Lehrer News Hour. She has written for many monthly magazines including More, Elle, Travel and Leisure and House and Gardens. Viking published her first novel, An African Affair, in 2011, which will be available in paperback this summer. She is currently working on a new novel.
Maya Rock is a writer and editor. She has two young adult novels forthcoming from Penguin Putnam and her journalism work has appeared in Marie Claire and the Writer magazine. She began literary agenting at Writers House in 2005; there she edited and sold nonfiction, pop culture, memoir, and young adult fiction. In 2010, she left Writers House to pursue a full-time freelance writing and editing career.
Coyote spotted at the park
New wildlife sighting! A coyote was spotted earlier this month at the Freshkills Park site by Nick Mirto, who was delivering a truckload of soil to finish capping Section 1/9, the future West Park. The photo above is courtesy Mr. Mirto’s iPhone.
Occasional coyote sightings have been reported in several areas within New York City, from Long Island to Central Park, but the coyote pictured above represents a notable first for Staten Island. It joins a growing list of wildlife spotted recently at the park, including red fox, herds of deer, muskrat, turtles, and ring-necked pheasant, among many other species.
(Via SILive)
Brooklyn greenhouse will be country’s largest rooftop farm
Brooklyn is becoming a national model for urban agriculture. This month, a major new rooftop farming project in Sunset Park, Brooklyn was announced by New York City-based Bright Farms, whose mission is centered on constructing hydroponic farms at, or near, supermarkets. With 100,000 square feet, the Sunset Park project could potentially yield 1 million pounds of produce a year.
One major advantage of hydroponic farming over more traditional forms is the lack of soil. On a rooftop, this translates to lightweight operations suitable for many buildings that would otherwise require extensive structural improvements. Rooftop hydroponic systems also harvest rainwater, preventing additional strain on the sewer system.
Though the Bright Farms greenhouse will be the largest rooftop farm in the city, and quite possibly the world, it joins several other significant and growing agricultural projects in Brooklyn. Brooklyn Grange, a Queens-based rooftop farming enterprise, plans to open a 45,000 square foot urban farm at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Farm-developers Gotham Greens will be opening a new location in the borough as well.
(via New York Times)
