STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — Two families’ fight to get back property New York City condemned 73 years ago brought back memories of when Staten Island was the city’s dumping ground.
In 1953, the Dillon and Eriksson families’ homes on Arthur Kill Road were part of a massive eminent domain effort that took nearly 3,000 acres of land for development of the Fresh Kills Landfill. Now, two modern branches of those family trees, Debra Romano and Tammy Eriksson, have sued the city and state to regain the properties they see as their inheritance.
Reporting from the time of the condemnation order and documentation the city submitted in the court case show a bit of how the city sold the project to Staten Island before it became an ecological disaster…