City Seeks Digital Storytellers for Freshkill Park Project

TRAVIS — The city wants digital storytellers to develop a public art project that traces New York City's history through Staten Island's Freshkills landfill.

The Parks Department put out a request for qualifications (RFQ) this week to hire designers to develop an interactive, digital project to teach New Yorkers about the site, which is now being transformed into a park.

The project aims to show some of the city's history through the lens of what was formerly the world's largest landfill, and the changing of the site, according to the Parks Department.

Designers will need to be able to translate the site's history, engineering and ecological restoration of Freshkills into an "environmental media installation" that will be hosted at a public-location off-site, according to the Parks Department.

The exhibition is funded by a $20,000 grant Freshkills Park received from the National Endowment for the Arts last year. 

Aside from the RFQ, the Parks Department and Borough President James Oddo issued a Request for Expressions of Interest (RFEI) last year for a variety of new services to come to the park.

Vendors pitched a restaurant serving produce grown on a farm in the park, a horse stable with riding trails, an indoor soccer complex and a World's Fair style event with a gondola to connect sections of the park to other spots in the borough. 

The city is currently working to assess the feasibility of the submitted plans.

The 2,039-acre former landfill is opening in several phases and the entire park is expected to open in 2025.

The deadline for designers or teams to apply for the public art project is June 8, according to Parks.

For more information on the RFQ, contact Mariel Villerè, manager for programs, arts and grants for the Parks Department, by emailing mariel.villere@parks.nyc.gov.