Where History and Ecology Meet: Daylighting Flushing Creek

In the early 1900s, Flushing Meadows–Corona Park was famously known as the “valley of ashes”—the wasteland immortalized in The Great Gatsby. Once wetlands along Flushing Creek, it was later buried under ash and rubble and transformed to host two World’s Fairs. Today, it’s one of NYC’s most diverse parks and one of the city’s most exposed assets to climate change and flood impacts.

Join landscape architecture firm SCAPE and founder Kate Orff on a walk through the park to learn how the park is being reimagined through daylighting as a more resilient destination—a process that will bring the river back to the surface and to a more natural state. Discover the park’s rich cultural history and how equitable, climate-adaptive design, ecology, public life, and infrastructure can coexist while restoring access to one of NY’s most cherished parks.