Fresh Kills Park

I went on a bus tour of the place. I liked the part where we stood on the trash mound – definitely not something I do every day! You can’t smell the garbage because it’s deep under ground and it’s covered by an impermeable layer of plastic. My skull is thicker than this plastic but don’t worry, the rats and moles can’t even get to the trash no matter how much they gnaw.
There are cute deer and eagles. A deer family ran by and I got happy.
You have to sign a waiver on the bus, but don’t let that scare you; the place is pretty safe. The parks bus driver, on the other hand, thinks this is nascar. As I am from a Strong Island suburb I am used to drivers who don’t follow the rules, but my cherub/​boyfriend was terrified.

Oh, come on; Fresh Kills will only ever be a dump, as far as I’m concerned. (The name itself, «Fresh Kills,» is oddly evocative.)
Much of New York City is built on landfill, actually; my neighborhood is, and the World Trade Center (now Freedom Tower) was. The scary thing is, there’s a park in Harlem where they give concerts and host cultural events; I’ve actually heard of people at the concerts becoming ill from sitting there for an extended period of time. Hope they have some damage control going on here.

Fresh Kills is the infamous former «world’s largest landfill» and it’s now being transformed into a park (which will be *three times the size of Central Park*). Two years ago the NYC Department of Parks & Recreation began giving two 1 ½-​hour tours/​day on several Saturdays in the fall & spring (they get booked-​up fairly quickly), and we took the tour seven months ago. It was quite fascinating — especially the park ranger’s talk — and we look forward to returning when the park has been brought to fruition to a greater extent (the entire process will take many more years).