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3,000 acres of land around the bay for agricultural use, producing, among other things, more than 100,000 bushels of potatoes and tens of thousands of pounds of other fruits and vegetables each year. The fisheries in and around Jamaica Bay would thrive even more than their agricultural counterparts, with some sources describing shellfishing in Jamaica Bay as “the best in New York state, if not in the nation as a whole,” and by 1904 a whopping 350,000 bushels of market oysters were being pulled out of its waters annually. The shellfishing industry would be one of the first affected adversely by the manmade changes to the bay, however, when sewage, a byproduct of the rapid urbanization along its shores, started to be dumped into the waters by the ton. By the early 1920s, the sheer volume of sewage—50,000,000 gallons daily according to some sources—led to the contamination of nearly twenty-one square miles of bay water. In 1911 alone, more than a hundred cases of gastroenteritis and twenty-seven cases of typhoid fever were attributed to eating the shellfish harvested there. As a result of this health risk, city officials decided to shutter the oyster and clamming industry in the area for good in 1921, warning merchants and connoisseurs that, because of the fact that between a quarter and a third of all of the city’s oysters came from these now fouled waters, they should expect a shortage in the coming years. It was not until years later that the city decided to construct a major sewage treatment plant along the shores of the bay, hoping to cleanup the much-maligned body of water. The biggest impetus for this clean up would come during the 1960s and 70s, culminating in the passage of the Clean Water Act of 1972, which helped to get the modern treatment plants seen all around the bay’s perimeter built. For the fishing industry in the area, however, this measure was a case of too little, too late; the damage was already done. While pollution might have halted the development of one industry, another was soon to follow. By the close of the nineteenth century, city planners were already finding new ways to use the bay now that the fisheries were decimated. Intent on the creation of a new
“The city of New York in co-operation with the Federal government is about to begin at Jamaica Bay a scheme of construction of channels, bulkheads, and the reclamation of land, which, when ultimately completed, will provide this port with 150 additional miles of water front.” The grand plan for Jamaica Bay, as depicted on the front cover of the 2 July 1910 issue of Scientific American, was widely touted but never realized. port to handle the ever-growing volume of shipping flowing into New York, many set their eyes upon the calm, protected waters of Jamaica Bay with ideas for a future commercial harbor. In 1910 the federal government, working with city officials, would take the first steps towards this vision when
it began to dredge portions of the bay so that larger ships could navigate its waters. Canals were dug and channels carved, dramatically increasing the volume of water in the bay. The mean depth of Jamaica Bay soared from just three to thirteen feet, while an estimated 1,400 acres of marshland were
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