Visions of new park on B’klyn landfill site
ALBANY — Buried under snow and frigid temperatures, Brooklyn residents can dream about a greener future.
Gov. Cuomo on Thursday announced the conversion of a federally owned site along Jamaica Bay that housed two closed city landfills into a 407-acre state park.
Cuomo said the park will offer central Brooklyn residents opportunities for biking, hiking, fishing and kayaking by providing “crucial” open space access to an underserved area of the state.
“This new state park will be a treasure in the heart of Brooklyn, offering hundreds of acres of beautiful parkland on the shores of Jamaica Bay,” Cuomo said. The first phase of the project, which the state hashed out with the feds and city, will cost the state $15 million. Work will begin after the National Park Service gives final approval. The park is set to fully open in 2019.
“For generations, the residents of central Brooklyn have lacked access to their waterfront and open spaces,” said Thomas Secunda, chairman of the Jamaica Bay-Rockaway Parks Conservancy.
The site, which the National Park Service has owned since 1974, includes two landfills the city operated until 1983.
In 2002, the city began a seven-year, $235 million project to remediate the site. The work included capping the old landfills, adding more than 1.2 million cubic yards of clean soil and planting 35,000 trees and shrubs.
While the feds will still own the land and the city will continue to operate a methanecapture operation on the site, the state will be responsible for the park. Future phases include building a connecting bridge between the two sites, environmental education facilities and an amphitheater, Cuomo said.