the beach project involved filling in approximately of leroy's and pelham bays with landfill, followed by a total of of sand brought by barge from sandy hook, new jersey, and the rockaway peninsula in queens. moses had originally wanted to use sand for the new land, but thought that waste from the new york city department of sanitation would be cheaper to use, so the material of choice was switched to landfill. work on placing the fill began in early 1935, but officials opposed the use of garbage to fill in the land. the landfill was placed among rodman's neck, the twin islands, and hunter island. after the garbage began washing onto the beach through the as-yet-incomplete seawall, work on the filling operation was halted. the board allocated $500,000 () for of sand, and the rest of the land reclamation project was done using sand from sandy hook and the rockaways. the sand-filling operations officially began in april 1936. two seawalls were built: one made of boulders on the east side of the fill facing pelham bay, and a smaller wall on the west side facing leroy's bay, now a lagoon. the fill was then landscaped with flowers, shrubs, and various genera of trees, while the naturally planted chestnut, oak, hickory, black locust, and black cherry trees on either side of the fill were kept as is.