As one of New York’s most successful environmental restoration projects, the conversion of Croton Point from a landfill into a park is an important piece of Westchester history. Thanks to the Aerial Photograph Collection from the Westchester County Government, this journey can be visualized via a series of images taken from aerial surveys conducted throughout the 20th century.
In the Beginning
Before 1927, the area of Croton Point that was eventually converted into a landfill was a freshwater marsh, home to thriving populations of local birds, turtles, and aquatic mammals. In the 1925 map below, the marsh is outlined in blue:
1925
Although it was made in 1931, after the landfill was established, this map made by Dalton Fowler still shows the area as marshland:
The Landfill
After 1927, Westchester County’s garbage replaced the once-flourishing marshland ecosystem on Croton Point. The growth of the landfill can be seen in the 1947 and 1986 maps below, where the landfill and drainage areas are outlined in red. The highlighted areas show placed to which the landfill and drainage systems expanded between 1947 and 1986:
1947
1986
The Restoration
After the restoration between 1992 and 1995, wildlife once again flourished on the land that was once filled with garbage. The re-establishment of vegetation and a healthy ecosystem can be seen in the maps from 1995 and 2023. The highlighted blue areas in the 1995 map represent restored land:
1995
Credit: Google
2023
See “From Garbage to Grassland: The Restoration of Croton Point” here: https://www.cleanwestchester.org/articles/crotonpointrestoration
Sources:
https://crotonhistory.org/2012/02/22/croton-point-map-1931/
https://giswww.westchestergov.com/HistoricalAerial/
https://www.dec.ny.gov/data/DecDocs/360001/ROD.HW.360001.1993-03-01.croton_point.pdf