PARKS:
Introduction | Richard W. DeKorte Park | Mill Creek Point Park | Losen Slote Creek Park
Hudson County Park at Laurel Hill | River Barge Park and Marina | Richard P. Kane Natural Area

Richard W. DeKorte Park (Lyndhurst)

This 110-acre park, is the center of NJMC’s activities. It offers passive recreation and educational opportunities. It is also the location of the NJMC’s campus and includes our Administrative Offices, the Meadowlands Center for Environmental and Scientific Education, the William D. McDowell Observatory and the Meadowlands Environment Center, offering hands-on educational programs for adults and children.

The award-winning park was designed by the NJMC’s certified landscape architects, working closely with wetlands scientists, wildlife specialists, and solid waste engineers.  Six featured areas have been developed over 20 years using native plants recycled materials and sustainable techniques to support the agency’s environmental mandate. Roughly 30,000 people visit DeKorte Park annually, including about 7,500 school children.

DeKorte Park as is the entire Meadowlands District is located along the Atlantic flyway, one of three major routes used by migratory birds in North America. More than 200 species of birds can be seen here throughout the year. The park is open daily from 8 AM until dusk. Many of the trails are wheelchair accessible. Literature is available at the Meadowlands Environment Center, including program schedules and a checklist for bird watchers.

A series of interpretive signs highlight the park’s resources – a bucolic marsh set against the backdrop of urban New Jersey and New York City.  These signs offer visitors an appreciation and awareness of the diversity of life found in the Meadowlands. They help visitors see the beauty as well as understand the benefits of the urban estuary and the wildlife it supports.

DeKorte Park offers a variety of experiences including a repurposed landfill, a marsh boardwalk, and converted utility service roads. Project signs trace the transformation of derelict sites to healthy habitats.

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Originally called “Experimental Park on a Landfill,” this was the first landfill-to-parks project in New Jersey and one of the first in the country. It was also the first use of a synthetic liner to cap a sanitary landfill.  The liner was manufactured from 400,000 recycled soda bottles.  The project was intended to provide wildlife habitat, facilities for environmental education, and a place where visitors could simply walk and take in the broad expanse of the Meadowlands. More than 15 years after construction, the plant communities have thrived and matured, and there has been a marked increase in the diversity of animal species and number of nesting birds on this 6.5-acre site.

-Lyndhurst Nature Reserve

This 3-½ acre site was an illegally filled garbage island in the tidal mudflat, created in the 50’s and 60’s.  Beginning in 1989, the site was restored.  First, a breakwater wall was built around the entire perimeter to allow the establishment of native marsh grasses.  Later, soil was brought in to the interior and sculpted to form hills and valleys.  The interior plantings emphasize natural succession, plant and animal habitats, and environmental education.  A barrier-free self-guided trail leads visitors past interpretive signs, wildlife observation areas, and native plant communities.   

-Saw Mill Creek Trail

The Saw Mill Creek Trail brings visitors out into the vast mudflat of the Saw Mill Creek Wildlife Management area, providing a rare sense of wide open space in this dense urban setting. The base of the trail was initially built in the 1920’s and 1930’s to follow high tension electric lines. It was reconstructed as a pedestrian trail in 2001. Stone and soil were placed to raise the surface elevation.  Six seating areas were incorporated to serve as resting and viewing areas.  Native plants were also installed as were the beautifully designed entrance gates

-Marsh Discovery Trail

The recently-renovated Marsh Discovery Trail is a ½-mile long boardwalk through the brackish marsh. It was the first barrier-free marsh nature trail built in New Jersey. The trail connects a series of dredge spoil islands along the former Kingsland Creek, now the Kingsland Tidal Impoundment. The impoundment is well known by local bird watchers and nature enthusiasts. The water retained by a sluice gate and earthen dikes creates a unique habitat for nesting and migrant aquatic animals and birds.  The Marsh Discovery Trail features outdoor classrooms, photo blinds, wildlife observation blinds, and class study docks. Interpretive signs are located throughout. 

-Transco Trail

This Trail comprises four seating areas along a service road bordering the Kingsland Impoundment. This trail connects the Marsh Discovery Trail with the Lyndhurst Nature Reserve.

The Cove (World Trade Center Memorial)

The World Trade Center Memorial is located on the edge of the marsh looking out toward the lower Manhattan Skyline. It consists of a sinuous freeform wooden deck with two projecting piers, suggesting shadows of the fallen towers. The piers are proportioned after the World Trade Center towers and are each surfaced with 110 boards representing the 110 floors of the towers. Where the piers meet the main deck, a porcelain enamel plaque dedicates the site in memory of those who lost their lives at the World Trade Center. 

A silhouette of the pre-9/11 skyline, cut from Corten Steel, is visible from the deck. Visitors can stand in a spot indicated on the deck and see where the towers once stood in the skyline. Billowing native grasses create a sense of separation and solitude. NJMC partnered with Ducks Unlimited to fund the project.

The quote on the plaque is from the great 19th century American orator and freethinker Robert Ingersoll. It reads: “In the night of death, hope sees a star, and listening love can hear the rustle of a wing”.

The Jill Ann Zimkiewicz Memorial Butterfly Garden

This garden was built to honor the memory of Jill Ann Zimkiewicz, the youngest member of the flight crew assigned to TWA flight 800, which fell into the ocean off Long Island on July 17, 1996. Jill’s Garden was designed as a “teaching” butterfly garden; a living classroom where students can observe butterfly habitat.

At the center of the garden is a hand-carved limestone fountain shaped like a sunflower, Jill’s favorite. This is not meant to be a somber place or a place set apart from the world:  it is open, cheerful, and welcoming, filled with activity, texture, color, sound and sunshine.