Radiolab - REBROADCAST: Detective Stories

We're celebrating summer with a classic episode of Radiolab--full of mystery, intrigue...and a goat standing on a cow. We haven't actually tried listening to it around a campfire, but we're betting it would totally work. See you in two weeks with a new short!

Duration: 59m
Broadcast on: 11 Jul 2011
Audio Format: other

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Oh, wait, you're listening to Radio Lab from WNYC and NPR. Do you want to get out? Is this us? Yeah, this is okay. This is Radio Lab. I'm Jad Abumrod. Since our program today deals with stumbling upon the past in unlikely places, we've always begun this part of the show. Well, not at a place we'd normally visit. So, I feel like we're standing on top of a mountain, but how high up are we? Right here, I believe we're about 180. This by the way is Chief Dennis Diggins. I'm an Assistant Chief from the New York City Department of Sanitation. And when he says 180, he means "feet." About 180 feet high. Wow. That's about 18 stories, correct? 18 stories up into the Staten Island sky. That's where we're standing. Where we're standing. A hill. Basically like a big dirt hill. And in a glance, you'd never know that this hill was made from anything other than dirt. What did this used to be? Unless, of course, you dug about a few feet down. This is all garbage underneath us. Up until March of 2001, we were taking in all of New York City's garbage. All the burrows were coming here. All the burrows were coming here. So we were probably taking in on average 11,000 tons a day. Fresh kills used to be the biggest dump on the planet, but that's all in the past. With a little engineering help? It's going to be a great park. Absolutely. This will be a park. And just look at how much property you have. All these mounds are getting wrapped in plastic and covered with grass and there'll be a restaurant. I can almost imagine that. Even a golf course. Yeah, I would love to be the first one to tee off on this. But underneath it all, the garbage will still be here. 50 years of trash waiting patiently until someone comes to look for it and someone always does. I know years ago, there was a garbage, an archeological garbage man that came here and he did some course sampling. Meaning with a special tool, this guy bored a hole deep into the center of the mound. It actually came up with a hot dog. Land fell 10 years previously.

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