Green metropolis : the extraordinary landscapes of New York City as nature history and design The woman who launched the restoration of Central Park in 1980 surveys in depth seven green landscapes in New York City their history both natural and human and how they have been transformed over time. Elizabeth Barlow Rogers describes seven landscapes: greenbelt and nature refuge that runs along the spine of Staten Island on land once intended for a highway; Jamaica Bay near JFK Airport whose mosaic of fragile endangered marshes has been preserved as a bird sanctuary; Inwood Hill in upper Manhattan whose forest once sheltered Native Americans and Revolutionary soldiers before it became a site for wealthy estates and subsequently a public park; the Central Park Ramble a carefully designed artificial wilderness in the middle of the city; Roosevelt Island formerly Welfare Island in the East River where urban planners built a traffic free new town in town in the 1970s and whose southern tip now boasts the Louis Kahn designed memorial to FDR; Fresh Kills the James Corner Field Operations designed 2 200 acre park on Staten Island that is being created out of what was once the worlds largest landfill; The High Line in Manhattans Chelsea and West Village neighborhoods an aerial promenade built on an abandoned elevated rail spur