1890s–1920s
The next section of “Freshkills Park In Plain View” timeline focuses on early environmental advocacy through art. Until the late 1880s, New York City dumped most of its waste into the Atlantic Ocean. In 1895, Commissioner George E. Waring Jr. introduced a waste management plan that ended ocean dumping and mandated recycling. Household waste was sorted into food scraps, rubbish, and ash—food waste was processed into grease and fertilizer, reusable materials were salvaged, and ash was landfilled. Fresh Kills, once a meadow and estuary, had already suffered pollution, and by 1916, the city had turned it into a waste dumping site. Public protests briefly shut it down in 1918, but city planners reopened it in the late 1940s due to its impermeable soil. Artists like William Allaire Shortt and Isaac Almstaedt depicted Fresh Kills’ natural beauty, with Shortt’s work reinforcing his status in New York’s elite and possibly supporting preservation efforts.
Image Sources (visit exhibition for captions)
Slide 2: Staten Island Museum
Slide 3-5: Staten Island Historical Society
The timeline was organized with students from Curating Design at the Intersection of Art, Ecology, and Technology, a course taught by co-curator Caroline Dionne
@captain_c ), including:
+ Vardan Babayan, Lauren Brown, Veronica Chen, Jac Clayton
@jacclaytonn , Lara Damabi, Bingxue (Yoyo) Dong, Kerry Fusco, Jeniffer Isakbaev
@jenisak14 , Xin (Daisy) Li, Emeline Louis, Dina Pritmani
@bands4dina , Catalina Vizcarrondo, El Weinstein, Chengyue (Sia) Zhao
@sia_zhao , Danqi (Nini) Zhao
#freshkilllspark #InPlainView #timeline #parsonsschoolofdesign #ArtExhibition #UrbanEcology
