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The biggest misconception about Battery Park City is that it is built on a landfill, as if it were sitting atop an old trash dump or nuclear waste site. BPC is simply newly constructed land made from relocated sand, which is a common way to build on coastal properties.
Very few people realize that fancy Miami Beach is built on so called landfill. In 1913, real estate mogul Carl Fisher dredged sand to connect scattered sandbars into the long section of real estate we now know as Miami Beach. More recently, expensive properties in Dubai were made out of nothing by blowing sand from nearby sea bottoms to create large developments.
There are hundreds of other examples all around the globe, and in fact, much of the Downtown Financial District and Seaport is made from landfill. The original shorelines in old Manhattan do not resemble the modern shoreline. New Yorkers can expect more “landfill” projects coming soon as the city prepares for climate change and serious flooding.