MAKING A MUSEUM: Materializing Regimes of Value with the NYC Department of Sanitation

DSNY Making Museum

mapping the city

building new york city

Forever changing, New York City is shaped and expanded by its own discard. Ever since the Island of Manhattan was established by the Dutch in the 1650s, man has been expanding her shorelines. Pearl Street was named for the pearly shells found on the eastern shore at the time and Greenwich Street once bordered the Hudson River to the west. Since the colonial days, over 3,650 acres have been added to Manhattan. In 1934, construction of the East River Drive began, expanding Manhattan to the east. The highway was built on a combination of landfill and pile-supported relieving platforms. Riverside Park alone used well over a hundred thousand yards of refuse. As part of the 1960s urban renewal plan, lower Manhattan had expanded an additional 23.5 acres with the creation of Battery Park City along the Hudson River. When the twin towers were being built more than a million cubic yards of earth removed from the foundation were trucked a short distance and used as landfill for Battery Park City. Battery Park City is now home to a residential neighborhood, schools and public parks. Currently over one-fourth of the island has been taken from the water.

rikers island

Rikers first saw garbage when an ocean dumping scow crew realized that they would not have to put themselves in danger of storms if they dumped their loads onto the small island in the entrance to the Long Island Sound. New York City soon bought the island in 1884 and used it as a jail farm. (The island, Moses said, “exercised an irresistible charm over the sanitation authorities… [Their] barges swarmed to it.”) The city operated the jail and dump until 1942. The dump came under heavy protest from residence in the proximity of the stench from the dump fires. Refuse from Rikers was mined and used as landfill for the old North Beach Airport, now LaGuardia Airport and Corona Meadows. By 1954, the landfill had added 328 acres to the area of the island, enabling the jail facilities to expand. Rikers island, now half the size of Central Park, is home to one of the largest jail facilities in the United States.

garbage land

Land made from garbage has some challenges. William Francis Carey built his North Beach airport with garbage fill, believing it to be a solid foundation for heavy construction. Moses was not so optimistic, finding that refuse was not the ideal material for fill, particularly for his parkway projects. Carey quickly found that the settlement rate was much higher than expected. The main terminal building was collapsing within ten years, along with a runway which had to be filled regularly. Rats not only nested underground, but anywhere and everywhere, including the terminal. Moses did find refuse cheap and practical for park areas, beaches and peninsulas under his bridges.

landfills

Landfill Operation was defined in 1938 as the scientific reclamation of worthless swampland. In its natural state, Fresh Kills in Staten Island was primarily tidal creeks and costal marshes, the perfect conditions for the 1940s idea of landfilling. Little did the department know about leche contamination of the waters that made this beautiful part of Staten Island a target for the city’s trash. Fresh Kills landfill opened in 1948. By 1955 Fresh Kills was the largest landfill in the world and remained the largest till 1999. At its peak of operation, Fresh Kills received as much as 29,000 tons of trash per day and employed 680 people. The four landfill mounds on the site are made up of approximately 150 million tons of solid waste. Benjamin Millers argues that “landfilling is the worst thing you can do for land, you are condemning it. You can never use the land again.” So what are the future plans for New York’s dump? Is there any way to reclaim this land? After an international design competition, Field Operations' won with the proposal, lifescape, envisioning Fresh Kills Park as a new form of public ecological landscape. The Fresh Kills Park Project is now focused on transforming the former Fresh Kills Landfill into a new public park over the next 30 years. Fresh Kills Park will be one of the most ambitious public works projects in the world, combining state of the art ecological restoration techniques with extraordinary settings for recreation, public art, and facilities for many sports. Nearly forty-five percent of the site was once used for landfilling operations, creating mountains of the city’s garbage. Once again our trash is shaping New York City.