Shirley Chisholm State Park Tour

This walking tour of Shirley Chisholm State Park will be held on May 18 at 10:00am and meet at the Fountain Side Entrance at 950 Fountain Avenue, Brooklyn, NY. There is a parking lot at the meeting point and the closest public transportation options to the Fountain Side Entrance are the Q8, B13, and B84 bus lines. Participants should be prepared for approximately three hours of walking with some steep inclines and bring water, sunscreen and wear comfortable, fully closed shoes (no sandals). The tour will be led by John McLaughlin, Managing Director of the Bureau of Environmental Planning & Analysis at the NYC Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and Ciara Scully, Deputy Park Director at New York State Office of Parks, Recreation, & Historic Preservation.

Two remediated landfills have recently become Shirley Chisholm State Park. Rising 130 feet above sea level, this new park occupies some of the highest ground in New York City and offers spectacular panoramic views of the Empire State Building to the northwest, the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge and New York Harbor to the west, and Jamaica Bay to the south. DEP was responsible for the remediation and closure of two inactive hazardous waste sites on Jamaica Bay. These two landfills are located within the Gateway National Recreation Area, Jamaica Bay Unit, and are owned by the United States Department of Interior’s, National Park Service. Because these landfills are within a sensitive environmental area, DEP took a proactive environmental stewardship role in developing an innovative ecological restoration plan for these properties that would complement and enhance the existing ecological features of Jamaica Bay. The designs were also used as the inspiration for the international design contest to develop the Master Plan for the Fresh Kills landfill on Staten Island. The design documents for the closure of these two landfills were completed in 1999 and NYCDEP began the closure and remediation of these landfills in March 2002. The 275-acre Fountain landfill and the 90-acre Pennsylvania landfill are designed with maritime woodland/shrubland and grassland species. The restoration of these two sites represents the largest environmental restoration ever undertaken in New York City.

DEP developed a detailed ecological restoration plan for each site, incorporating indigenous maritime warm season grasses (8 species), shrubs and trees (combined total of 41 species). In addition, hiking and walking trails were also designed and installed for passive public use. Unique features of this ecological restoration design plan include the following: re-introduction to New York City of several rare or extirpated plants, increase of genetic and biodiversity traits, substantial improvement to wildlife habitat, available food sources and shelter. The use of indigenous plant communities also minimized supplemental watering requirements, use of harmful fertilizers and herbicides and the reduced soil erosion and sediment loading into local waterbodies. Unlike many other restoration design plans, the species for this project were selected based on their ecological plant community associations and the environmental setting of the landfills (maritime ecosystem) to provide a much greater ecological value, long term sustainability and biodiversity than simply placing individual and “out of context” plant species. The plant species were also selected to help re-establish extirpated or less common indigenous maritime flora that have been absent from much of the NYC region since the early 20th Century. As part of this plan, DEP secured contract growing arrangements for approximately 35,000 trees and shrubs at several area nurseries for up to 3-years. The first planting began at Pennsylvania Landfill in spring 2006 and the first plant arrive at Fountain Landfill in spring 2007. Because of the large size of the total restoration area and the number of plants installed, in time, the site will become an important regional seed source to disseminate new species to other parts of the New York City metropolitan area and to Jamaica Bay. The actual restoration potential will extend far beyond the physical restoration of the site and will be a key player in re-introducing these species to other locations.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Fountain Side Entrance at Shirley Chisholm State Park, 950 Fountain Avenue, Brooklyn, United States