Officials will transform what was once a solid waste management site, the largest in the world, into a new New York City park.
The Fresh Kills Landfill on Staten Island, which was an integral part of identifying 9/11 victims for months after the fall of the Twin Towers, will be officially certified closed Tuesday as state and city officials finalize an effort to it has cost nearly $1 billion since 1986.
Fresh Kills became the place to sort and sift through the debris from the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and helped bring some element of closure to the families of the missing. The closure comes nearly 20 years after it received its last piece of debris from ground zero.
It also comes just a few months before North Park opens on a portion of the site. That opening is just the first phase of what will become a 2,200-acre park, according to the city’s Department of Sanitation.
When completed, the park will be the second largest in New York City, behind the 2,765-acre Pelham Bay Park in the Bronx, which originally opened in the 1880s. It will be nearly four times the size of Central Park.
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