Fresh Kills Park and the Native Plant Nursery

Tri-State Events

Join us for an afternoon tour at the Staten Island Ferry Terminal in St. George where we will meet the Parks Department bus that will take us to Fresh Kills Park. Programming Associate Jessa Orluk will show us the progress made in the last fifteen years. At 2,200 acres, Freshkills Park will be almost three times the size of Central Park and the largest park developed in New York City in over 100 years. Formerly the world’s largest landfill, this enormous park will one day hold a variety of public spaces and facilities, including playgrounds, athletic fields, kayak launches, hiking trails, art installations, and much more. The park is being built, and is scheduled to be opened in phases, through 2036. While the bus tour with on and off stops will not cover the entire landscape, we will have an opportunity to see normally closed areas of Freshkills Park with views of the park’s hills and waterways.

From there it is only a short trip to the Parks Department Greenbelt Native Plant Center, where Nursery Manager Jeremy LaPointe will give us an overview of the undertaking to grow indigenous native plants for New York City Parks. The nursery grows on average 100,000 to 200,000 native plants annually from wild collected seed in support of natural area restoration and management projects in the five boroughs. The nursery has 17,000 sq ft of greenhouse and 5 acres of active container nursery operations and is being developed as an active seed bank resource in the region.

The day finishes at approximately 5:15pm at the Ferry Terminal in St. George where we will take the 5:30pm ferry, arriving around 6pm on the Manhattan side.