Staten Island Restaurant Tour, Part XXIII: Melt Shop (New Springville)
M y mission to New Springville was twofold. Grab a grilled cheese from Melt Shop in the Staten Island Mall. And confront Freshkills Park. Three times the size of Central Park, it sits on the former site of the notorious Fresh Kills Landfill, where all five boroughs of New York City dumped their garbage from 1948–2001. Underground the massive corruption of these delicate wetlands still lurked. Aboveground there were moments of great beauty, as I stood at the edge of a wildlife refuge, blue skies presiding over tall grasses growing wild and waving in a gentle breeze.
It hasn’t always been that way. New York City dumped its garbage in Staten Island for half a century and islanders did not take this indignity lying down. In 1993, 65 percent of them voted to secede from the rest of the city, only to be thwarted by the state legislature. The impetus for secession ended following the election of Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. I much preferred his predecessor, Mayor David Dinkins, who taught my generation that a gentleman never leaves home without a handkerchief; crime stats show that it was Dinkins who broke the back of the 1980s-90s crime wave by hiring more cops and increasing foot patrols. But it was Giuliani who made the ferry a free ride and relieved the island of a toxic trash blight so huge, it could be seen from space. That was his finest achievement — maybe he should talk about it more often. Here is the site of the atrocity.
That badge-shaped object at right, reminiscent of the island as a whole, is New Springville. Its northerly companion Heartland Village has most of the housing, while the Staten Island Mall, my lunch destination, dominates to the southwest. The small enclave of Travis-Chelsea (formerly Linoleumville) is at left. Freshkills Park is divided into the North Mound, below Travis-Chelsea, and the West Mound, below that, with the Isle of Meadows between them. The complex of delicate blue veins at top-center is the William T. Davis Wildlife Refuge, an expanse of wetlands with Travis Avenue cutting through it. That’s where I did my viewing and shooting.
Travis Avenue seemed my best bet to get a few shots of the refuge with its criss-crossing of slender waterways. It looked promising at first, with the limited three-mile bike and pedestrian greenway above, but soon became more challenging. Here is one of the less hazardous stretches, which cuts through the park’s northern end. I would often stand against the guardrail to acknowledge the drivers of wider vehicles and wait while they passed. When this narrowed to a two-feet stretch of mud and gully, I was too busy with self-preservation to shoot pictures.
Except for this handtool, buried in the mud. There were Parks Department vehicles and facilities in the area. Working on the methane pumps, perhaps. More on those later.
But there were rewards. Here is one of the kills, or small streams, that gives Fresh Kills Landfill and Freshkills Park their names, with or without the space between words.
City officials started dumping garbage in Staten Island in 1948 as a “temporary” measure after the city stopped incinerating its trash. Great for most New Yorkers, not so great for Staten Islanders. The dump laid waste to a tidal marsh that had been teeming with wildlife, replacing it with rats and packs of feral dogs. Toxic breezes wafted over the adjacent neighborhoods of New Springville and Travis-Chelsea.
The four trash mounds exceeded 200 feet in height, and if the dump hadn’t closed, today they would top 500 feet. They were leaky, too — a “syringe tide” triggered closure of 70 miles of nearby New Jersey beaches. It rankled Staten Islanders that their borough was the place where the rest of the city dumped its garbage. No wonder they wanted out.
The secession movement fizzled after Mayor Giuliani closed the landfill, with support from GOP Governor George Pataki and the Environmental Protection Agency under President George W. Bush (in case you were wondering why SI is the NY borough that votes Republican). Following 9/11 it was briefly reopened from 2001–02 to accept debris from the World Trade Center; a memorial is planned at the site to honor traces of human remains that could not be identified. The work of sealing the landfill proceeded in layers, as you can see below. The waste remains below the ground — it took decades for the garbage barges to bring it all there and removing it would have taken decades more.
As Smithsonian explains, buried trash and rainwater form a toxic “tea,” which emits methane. The six-layer toxic-waste wedding cake includes a gas-vent layer of gravel through which the stinky gas is captured and pumped out. When I was there the air smelled clean and the skies were clear. Elsewhere in the vast park, in areas accessed from the Travis-Chelsea side, are basketball and handball courts, soccer fields, lawns, and parking, and — just unveiled in 2023 — a 21-acre park-within-a-park with paths connecting peds and cyclists to better views of Main Creek and the wildlife refuge than I got from Travis Avenue. The park is home to 84 bird species and the methane from the pumps, sold to an energy company, bring in $12 million in annual revenue. An impressive transformation in what is still, despite rapid development, the city’s greenest borough.
The island retains its proud separatist identity. Like other “outer borough” (non-Manhattan) residents, Staten Islanders often speak of “going into the city,” as if they weren’t part of it. In a way, they’re not. New Springville, the northern part of which is also known as Heartland Village, is full of newish two-family homes with ample car storage.
Are these homes attractive despite the harlequin cladding, or because of it?
I could be wrong, but my guess is that this one is older, perhaps even pre-landfill, though amply renovated.
I backtracked and headed south to the Staten Island Mall, where the biggest retail tenants are Macy’s, H&M, and The Container Store. The piquantly named Food District offers a selection of fast food, not all of it unhealthy — and firearms are prohibited. Whew!
The Food District is big. The Thai place next to Popeyes might have been a viable alternative if I hadn’t had my heart set on grilled cheese.
Melt Shop has locations in Manhattan, Long Island, Westchester, and Philadelphia. The Staten Island version has no seating of its own but you can take your food to a large dining area nearby that serves everyone. I managed to input my order into the large touchscreen without crashing it. Where retail touchscreens are concerned, I’m a bit like Arthur Bryant, the eightysomething London homicide detective in Christopher Fowler’s Bryant & May mysteries, who could incinerate a computer just by looking at it.
They’re really pushing the Biggie Melts. Who am I to quibble with the food scientists beavering away at Melt Shop Labs? I really came here for a basic grilled cheese but decide to upgrade to the Biggie Classic, on thick-cut “French” bread.
Ketchup was graciously offered without my having to ask. Granted, a weird thing to add to herb parmesan tots (or fries) but tots without the red stuff just didn’t seem right.
The sandwich was small but thick and expertly grilled, with a crispy-chewy exterior and a melty interior of American and cheddar. I learned the word melty from a fast food ad. You’re never too old to learn new things. I normally don’t think of cheddar as a good melting cheese but it blended well with the American.
The tots were a good combo of crunchy outside and yielding inside. I also managed to sample the fries when one fell off someone’s plate at the order counter. The person left with her order, I waited till no one was looking, then popped the fry into my mouth. It looked ordinary but tasted wonderful.
I had company near my table. This guy was among a crew of five or six. As long as they’re not pigeons (which defecate all over my windowsill and air conditioner at home) I’m fine with them.
My fellow diners and I enjoyed a big-sky view of Freshkills Park.
When about to embark on a long bus ride, I’m more potty conscious, and in such a situation a clearly marked bathroom is ever a blessing.
On my bus trip out from the ferry terminal, a guy who had accumulated an impressive set of face and neck tattoos alarmingly early in life was holding the door for his girlfriend. I said “thank you” as I followed her through it (at a respectful distance). “I wasn’t holding it for you,” he snapped. I spent the rest of the day feeling guilty every time I said “thank you” to anyone. Unfortunately I say it a lot.
Bookending that unsettling experience, as I rode back to the ferry terminal, was this more amiable dude vaping on the bus while talking on the phone. I grabbed the shot just after he said, “The robbery isn’t until sundown, to give more realism. They trust me on this.” If realism was his concern, he must have been talking about his art, not an impending crime. A cinematographer or director, perhaps. These isolated West Shore nabes are shaping up to be the weirdest part of the Tour.
Previously on the Staten Island Restaurant Tour:
Part I: Angelina’s (Tottenville)
Part II: Fina’s Farmhouse (Arthur Kill)
Part III: Laila (Richmond Valley)
Part IV: Il Forno (Pleasant Plains)
Part V: Breaking Bread (Prince’s Bay)
Part VI: Woodrow Diner (Huguenot)
Part IX: Marina Cafe (Great Kills)
Part XI: Canlon’s (Oakwood Heights)
Part XII: Prince Tea House (New Dorp)
Part XIII: Inca’s Peruvian Grille (Grant City)
Part XIV: Colonnade Diner (Jefferson Avenue)
Part XVI: Chinar on the Island (Old Town)
Part XVII: Cinco de Mayo (Grasmere)
Part XVIII: Phil-Am Kusina (Clifton)
Part XIX: Lakruwana (Stapleton)
Part XX: Pier 76 (Tompkinsville)
Part XXI: Chang Noi Thai (St. George)
Part XXII: Mike’s Unicorn Diner (Bulls Head)
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