Edgemere Landfill
Edgemere Landfill is a former municipal landfill located in Edgemere on the Rockaway peninsula in Queens, New York City. It is located on a man-made peninsula on the Jamaica Bay shoreline, at the eastern end of the Rockaway peninsula. A portion of the site is open to the public as Rockaway Community Park. The entire site is owned by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation.
The landfill began operations in June 1938, merging several islands in the Jamaica Bay marshland and connecting them to the main Rockaway Peninsula. Shortly afterward, a portion of the site was used as the Rockaway Airport. Edgemere Park was conceived for the landfill site in the 1950s by New York City Parks Commissioner Robert Moses, as part of the infrastructure for the adjacent Edgemere Houses housing project. The site, along with several other planned parks in the city, continued operations as a landfill in order to fill the marshland for park development. The small portion of Rockaway Community Park adjacent to the Edgemere Houses was developed in the 1960s. During its operation, the landfill was a dumping site for toxic chemicals and waste oil, and served as a hazard to nearby John F. Kennedy International Airport by attracting birds. Following the discovery of toxic waste drums in the landfill in 1983, the landfill was declared a Superfund site. It was closed in 1991 and capped afterwards.
The peak of the landfill is the tallest point in the Rockaways, measuring high. The landfill is claimed to be "the longest continuously operating dump in the United States", accepting waste from 1938 to 1991. It is also one of the oldest landfills in New York City, and was the second-to-last city landfill to remain in operation. The final landfill, Fresh Kills Landfill in Staten Island, closed in 2001.
Description
Former landfill
The Edgemere Landfill is located on the north side of the Rockaway Peninsula in the Edgemere neighborhood near Arverne at the east end of the Rockaways. The landfill site consists of a smaller peninsula, which extends northward into Jamaica Bay at the east end of the bay. Smaller bodies of water within the bay form the peninsula's western and eastern sides. To the west is Somerville Basin which runs between the peninsula and Dubos Point in Arverne to the west. To the east is the Norton Basin which runs between the landfill and Bayswater to the east. At the south end of Norton Basin are two smaller water bodies, Conch Basin to the west at the base of the landfill site, and a smaller Norton Basin to the east next to Bayswater Park. All three water bodies end at about Beach Channel Drive.The landfill site can be described as a large "head" section, which contains the main landfill mound and extends into Jamaica Bay, and a "neck" section which connects the peninsula to the Rockaways. According to the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, the combined park and landfill site is in size. The size of the landfill is often stated as. Its shoreline extends. The landfill is covered by grassland, with several roads circumscribing the site, and running across the landfill. The grass is mowed once a year, allowing for the inspection of the landfill to search for gas leaks. The peak of the landfill measures high, the highest point on the Rockaway Peninsula. Because of this, it is one of the only sites in the area not in a flood-prone zone. The peak is still lower than the highest point of the former Fresh Kills Landfill in Staten Island, which is.
During its operation, the Edgemere Landfill received a total of of waste. The landfill is one of the three major landfills located along Jamaica Bay. The other two are the Pennsylvania Avenue and Fountain Avenue Landfills located in Brooklyn. Located directly across the landfill to the north are the ends of Runways 4L and 4R of John F. Kennedy International Airport. During the landfill's operation, the presence of gulls feeding off the garbage at the site posed a hazard to planes operating to and from the airport. Bird species found at the landfill include the American herring gull and the laughing gull, and the short-eared owl.
Parkland
At the base of the main landfill is the only open portion of Rockaway Community Park, located on the north side of Almeda Avenue across from the Ocean Bay Apartments housing project, formerly known as the Edgemere Houses. The developed park occupies approximately of land. An additional of land were released by the Department of Sanitation for recreational use in 2010. A "natural area" is situated to the north of the developed park, located in the "neck" area between the park and the former landfill.Two smaller parcels of undeveloped parkland extend south on the west and east sides of the park towards Beach Channel Drive. The westernmost parcel is a rectangular plot between Beach 58th Street and Somerville Basin. The easternmost parcel is triangular in shape, on the Conch Basin coastline between Beach 51st Street and Elizabeth Avenue. These two plots are also considered the "West" and "East" natural areas of the park. The southernmost portion of the western plot is used as the Rockaway Youth Task Force Community Garden. Just south of the eastern parcel is Conch Playground, located adjacent to Public School 105 between Beach Channel Drive and Elizabeth Avenue.
The developed portion of the park near the housing complex features a grass sports field with a baseball diamond and cricket pitch. The cricket pitch is the only one on the Rockaway Peninsula. A second baseball diamond previously existed. The park also contains basketball, handball, and tennis courts and a playground. Two fishing piers are located on the Sommerville Basin coast at the west end of the northern natural area. A walking trail runs through the northern natural area. The main landfill itself is used as a birdwatching site, due to its proximity to the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge.
One of the major issues afflicting the park is the large presence of mosquitoes, leading the park to be underutilized. The presence of the mosquitoes in the park and at nearby Dubos Point has been attributed to their location along Jamaica Bay, and their significant vegetation. The park and other known mosquito breeding grounds in the city periodically undergo larvicide treatment and spraying to combat mosquitoes, although pesticide spraying only occurs when a virus such as West Nile is detected in the local mosquito population. Mosquito magnets are also present in the park to help control the population. The park is also afflicted by the presence of invasive plant species such as phragmites. In addition many of the park facilities are in disrepair, including the playing fields and courts which have overgrown with vegetation. Meanwhile, the north side of Almeda Avenue adjacent to the park lacks a sidewalk, making it difficult to access the park. There are also noise disturbances from nearby JFK Airport. The issues with mosquitoes and phragmites have affected the park since the 1960s when the park was created.
The original park plans for the main landfill were to create a marina and a golf course on the site. Contemporary plans for Rockaway Community Park seek to eventually develop the main landfill as part of the park. The landfill cannot be developed as parkland or for permanent structures until 2021.
Department of Sanitation facility
A portion of the site on the Conch Basin continues to be operated by the New York City Department of Sanitation. Part of the site is used as a gas extraction facility to collect gases emitted from the landfill. The site also contains the DSNY Queens East District 14 Garage. The garage opened in 2009. On December 14, 2010, the DSNY renamed the garage the "Stephen Dixon Garage" after Stephen Dixon, a worker from the garage who died on duty in March 2009. The previous garage was located at Beach 72nd Street and Amstel Boulevard in Arverne, now used as an Access-A-Ride depot.Transportation
The park and landfill are served by the and bus routes, which operate on Beach Channel Drive at the south end of the Edgmere Houses. The Q22 operates across the Rockaway Peninsula between Far Rockaway to the east and Roxbury to the west. The Q52, which terminates at Beach 54th Street, travels north via Woodhaven and Cross Bay Boulevards through Broad Channel to "mainland" Queens. The closest New York City Subway station is the Beach 60th Street station on the IND Rockaway Line, located to the southwest of the park at Beach 59th Street near Rockaway Beach Boulevard.Etymology
The name Edgemere is derived from an Anglo-Saxon term, meaning "edge of the sea". The term Rockaway is derived from a word in the Algonquin Native American languages. Several meanings have been given, including "sandy place", "the place of laughing waters", "the place of our own people", or "neck of the land". This was the name of the Lenape tribe, who were a subset of the Canarsee tribe, that occupied much of the area around Jamaica Bay.History
Early history
Prior to the creation of the landfill, the site of Edgemere Park consisted of numerous separate islands within a much larger Little Bay between Dubos Point to the west and Bayswater Point to the east. It was originally known as "Little Bay Marsh". Norton Basin originally was connected to the Atlantic Ocean by a creek called the Wave Crest Inlet, which separated the western peninsula from the mainland. The area around Jamaica Bay including the Rockaways was characterized by marshland. As late as 1872, the neighborhoods of Edgemere and Arverne were populated by cedar trees.The area around Jamaica Bay including the Rockaway Peninsula was initially inhabited by the Canarsie and Rockaway Native American groups, who were often referred to erroneously as the "Metoac" or "Mantinecocks". The Rockaway primarily controlled the eastern and southern shores of Jamaica Bay in present-day Queens and Nassau County, while the Canarsie controlled the northern and western shores in modern-day Brooklyn. In 1685, the Rockaway Peninsula was sold to English Captain John Palmer by two tribal chiefs, Tackapausha and Paman. Palmer was said to have purchased the land for "31 pounds, 2 shillings". The land was considered to be "barren", consisting of meadow and marsh used for grazing. At the time, the peninsula stretched from the modern Rockaway Turnpike west to the modern Wavecrest neighborhood, making up the greater Far Rockaway area of Queens and what is now Five Towns, Nassau County. The peninsula would later be extended west to Rockaway Point by the natural accretion of sand from tidal action.
In 1687 Palmer sold the land to English settler Richard Cornell, whose family would later found Cornell University. In return, Palmer received land in "Madnan's Neck", now Little Neck, Queens and Great Neck, Nassau County. Cornell had previously purchased what would become Flushing, Queens. Cornell constructed a house overlooking the Atlantic Ocean known as the "Cornell house" or "Cornell homestead", said to be the first permanent structure in the area. The house was located in the vicinity of Central Avenue, Beach 19th Street, and Empire Avenue in modern Far Rockaway. This is the location of the contemporary Hebrew Institute of Long Island at Beach 17th Street and Seagirt Boulevard. The family also created a nearby burial ground on Caffrey Avenue and New Haven Avenue.
After the partition of the Cornell property in 1809, in 1830 John Leake Norton purchased land from the Cornell family, consisting of Edgemere and Far Rockaway. Norton formed the Rockaway Association with several prominent New Yorkers, and the association constructed a hotel on the former site of the Cornell house called the Marine Pavilion. The pavilion was opened on June 1, 1833. Although it burned down on June 25, 1864, the hotel catalyzed the development of the Rockaways into a resort town. The Far Rockaway Branch Railroad of the South Side Railroad of Long Island was opened in 1869 between Valley Stream and Far Rockaway, and was extended to the Seaside House in Rockaway Park in 1872. The New York, Woodhaven & Rockaway Railroad opened their line from Brooklyn and "mainland" Queens to Rockaway Park in 1880. The Ocean Electric Railway opened a streetcar line via the Far Rockaway Branch tracks in 1897.
Up until the 1880s, the Edgemere and Arverne areas were largely undeveloped and were among the last to be developed on the peninsula. Edgemere, originally called "New Venice", was developed by Frederick J. Lancaster beginning in 1892, with the Hotel Edgemere opening in 1894. The Arverne neighborhood was developed by Remington Vernam. The Arverne Hotel was erected in 1888. A rail station in the neighborhood at Gaston Avenue was opened in 1888, and a second at Straiton Avenue in 1892. The Wave Crest Inlet, also called Wave Crest Lake, was filled in during 1911 in order to further develop the Edgemere neighborhood.