From parks to elementary schools, here are a few of the exciting projects taking place around New York City.
Staten Island Landfill to Become Public Park
The former Fresh Kills Landfill will soon become Freshkills Park, with the city recently holding a groundbreaking ceremony for the new park. While some parts of Freshkills Park are already open to the public, the 21-acre section that is currently under construction will be the first section of the former landfill to be open to the public as a park.
Coming in at a cost of just under $30 million, the 21-acre section of the former landfill will feature multiple-use pathways, a picnic lawn, a seven-acre seed farm, a bird observation tower, a deck overlooking the waterfront, a composting comfort station and more.
The city’s sanitation department has been cleaning and prepping the site for the Parks Department for the past few years. As a part of this effort, the city has installed various environmental management systems meant to ensure the area is safe for moving forward with the park.
The North Park of the Freshkills Park will be open to the public in 2020, but this is only a small portion of the complete project. Once complete in 2036, the park will cover a total of 2,200 acres and will be divided into five sections. At this size, the park will be almost three times the size of Central Park, with the five sections of the park being: the Confluence, East Park, South Park, North Park and West Park. Owl Hollow Soccer Fields, Schmul Park and other parts of the park have already been opened to the public.
WeWork Makes Plans for New Elementary School
The co-working startup of WeWork is making plans to expands its empire into the world of elementary education. As such, founders Adam and Rebekah Neumann have hired Bjjarke Ingels to design a school with plans to open at its New York City headquarters next fall.
A pilot version of the school, which ha just seven children, has already been launched. These students, aged five through eight, spend one day on a farm owned by WeWork while the rest of the week is spent in a more traditional classroom setting. The children receive instruction from many of the customers and employees of the company while still working toward meeting the educational requirements set by the state. This fall, the company hopes to expand the school to 65 students with classrooms for three and four-year-olds as well as grouped classrooms for kindergarten/first graders, second/third graders and fourth graders. Ultimately, WeWork hopes to expand to 12th grade with locations across the globe.
Undulating Park Proposed for Midtown
With the city recently launching the design process for a stretch of the East River Greenway between East 53rd and 61st Streets, a number of proposals for a new park have trickled in. Among these is a design proposed by the national architecture firm wHY, which includes an undulating, multi-path greenway along with Japanese zig-zag bridges. Several nooks where events can take place at the park have also been included in the design. This is just one proposal, however, and the city is not expected to pick a final design for another few months.