Freshkills Park
What was once the largest landfill in the world is being turned into a park nearly three times the size of Central Park — currently open in sections and by tour, and unlike anywhere else.
- What it costs
- Free. Some guided tours and events require booking ahead.
- Best in
- Spring, Summer, Fall
- Where
- North Park entrance, Schmul Park, Staten Island, NY 10314
- Official site
- freshkillspark.org
What this was
Fresh Kills opened in 1948 and became the largest landfill in the world — at its peak taking almost all of New York City's household waste, with mounds rising higher than the Statue of Liberty. It closed in 2001, briefly reopening to receive and sort debris from the World Trade Center.
The site is 2,200 acres, nearly three times the size of Central Park, and it is being capped, planted and turned into public parkland over a multi-decade programme.
Why go
Because there is nowhere else like it. Standing on a grassed mound that is a sealed mountain of a city's rubbish, looking out over creeks and wetlands with the Manhattan skyline on the horizon, is a genuinely strange and specific experience.
The ecology has come back hard — grassland birds, ospreys, and one of the better birding sites in the city.
There's also a 9/11 memorial on the site, sited on the mound where the recovered material was sorted.
Getting in
North Park at the Schmul Park entrance is the section most reliably open to the public.
Beyond that, the park runs guided tours, open days, kayaking, bird walks and cycling events on a published calendar — those get you into areas that are otherwise closed.
Book ahead and check the calendar. Turning up unannounced expecting a full park is the way to be disappointed; this is a site in the middle of a thirty-year transformation, and that is exactly what makes it worth seeing now.
Getting there
Ferry to St. George, then the S62 bus toward Travis for the North Park entrance. Budget 90 minutes from Midtown.
Check what is open before you go. The park is being built in phases and large parts are still closed to the public; access is often through scheduled open days, tours and events rather than open gates.
Getting around once you're there
The completed North Park paths are paved, wide and step-free. The wider site is under construction and largely inaccessible by design.