photo by teri tynes, flickr.com, (cc)
photo by arthur tress, nara
The City of New York’s large-scale landfill operations dumped the city’s garbage on the marshlands of Jamaica Bay. By 1973, citizens and civic groups were voicing strong opposition to the practice, citing pollution hazards and ecological damage. Today, much of Jamaica Bay is a wildlife refuge and recreation area, managed by the National Park Service as part of the Gateway National Recreation Area. By 1953, the first hints of this hybrid space were beginning to come together as migrant birds began to find their way to the man-made freshwater deposits of the Wildlife Refuge. Herbert Johnson, the city’s turf grass specialist, was chosen to manage the new reserve, and he did so with considerable success. In 1958, just five years after the opening of the refuge, researchers saw a remarkable recovery of the bay’s wildlife, with 208 different species now sighted in the area. Thirty more species would turn up the very next year, and the number of different animals that either called the area home or made it a pit stop on the Atlantic Flyway bird migration route would continue to climb, finally reaching the most recent count of 332 distinct species, representing nearly half of all of the species found in the entire Northeast. Moses, however, was not completely environmentally friendly, and while he hoped to turn portions of the bay into a recreational zone, he also saw the area as a suitable location to relieve the stress on New York City’s then-overflowing garbage dumps. Author and activist Elizabeth Barlow Rodgers paints a vivid picture of the scene all too common in many parts of the bay shore during this time, writing: NOTES <?>
Black, Frederick R. Jamaica Bay: A History (1981), NPS, Washington, DC, p. 4. <?> Kurlansky, The Big Oyster, p. 263. <?> Tarr, Joel A. “The Search for the Ultimate Sink: Urban Air, Land, and Water Pollution in Historical Perspective.” Records of the Columbia Historical Society, Washington, DC, 51 (1984): 1–29.
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Household garbage gobbled up more marshland. Around the bay’s perimeter, massive mounds of refuse continued to rise. Department of Sanitation trucks plied their slopes like busy ants, continually expanding the size of each landfill site with empty glass bottles, worn–out mattresses and treadless rubber tires…Once a given site was full, it was decommissioned, stabilized, and capped with soil before being turned into a park or building lot. The best example of this kind of landfill, and the most recently operational, can be seen in Spring Creek, in Brooklyn. The area, comprising two separate landfills, occupies over 400 acres of space that was extended out into the bay and is now home to Starrett City, as well as a shopping complex, and the remainder of the landfill is soon to be in part converted into a park. The story of Jamaica Bay is one that is far from over, and much like any piece of land and sea in an urban area, its future is far from certain. As the city continues to grow and expand, and the areas along <?>
Black, Jamaica Bay, p. 71. Fauss, Eric. The Wild Lands of Gotham: City and Nature in Jamaica Bay, NY, 1880–1994 (2014), Doctoral Dissertations, Paper 374. p. 4. <?> Black, Jamaica Bay, pp. 71–72. <?> Hendrick, Daniel M. Jamaica Bay (2006), Arcadia Publishing, Charleston, SC, pp. 59–62. <?>
the waters of the bay continue to get more and more valuable through time, it is only logical that the coastlines and environmental realities that we take for granted today will continue to change. It is entirely possible that the bay, by the time the next generation enters adulthood, will be something entirely different from the bay we know today. As we have seen, the bay will be shaped and molded by the way we human beings see a need for it. When the city needed a new port, we planned to turn it into the greatest port the world would ever see. When we needed an airport, it became home to not one, but two, and when we needed an area for recreation, the bay was there to become just that. We do not know what the future holds, but one thing is certain. As the needs and desires of the rest of the city continue to change, so too will the shape and function of Jamaica Bay. Ray Vann is a freelance writer and journalist, with a master’s degree in history from Brooklyn College. He worked with the National Parks Service at Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge for eight years, during which time he developed a deep appreciation for the bay and its history and ecosystem. <?> Rodgers, Elizabeth Barlow. Green Metropo-
lis: The Extraordinary Landscapes of New York City as Nature, History, and Design (2016), Penguin Random House, New York, p. 44. <?> Black, Jamaica Bay, p. 70. <?> Fauss, The Wild Lands of Gotham, p. 10. <?> Rodgers, Green Metropolis, pp. 44–48.
SEA HISTORY 164, AUTUMN 2018