The Other New York

Earlier this week my wife and I took an Audubon cruise out to Jamaica Bay with our friends Randy and Linda. (Want to try one? Go to www.nycaudubon.org) We each rushed to Pier 16 at the South Street Seaport from all over Manhattan, arriving just in time for the 6:30 P.M. departure. It had been a brutally hot day, and as we glided out of port onto the East River the temperature magically dropped ten degrees. Gabriel Willow, our charming and extraordinarily knowledgeable guide, began almost immediately to point out birds which, in the normal course of life, we barely notice. Not pigeons but gulls and, as the light began to wane and we descended the coast of Brooklyn towards the Verrazano Bridge, great egrets, black-crowned night herons, cormorants, skimmers, and several varieties of tern. On Governor’s Island and Hoffman Island, we saw nesting terns and trees literally filled with hundreds of nesting cormorants and egrets, the dark coats of the former turning one set of trees black while the snowy plumage and long necks of the latter made a blindingly bright lacework of the trees adjoining.

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Photo credit: Randy Arthur

Who thinks of New York as a natural wonderland? But it is. Whales have been sighted again in New York Harbor. The oyster population, once the largest in the world, is gradually returning as our waterways become less polluted (and, since the oysters are filtration feeders, they are both a hallmark of and a contributor to this reduction in aquatic pollutants.) Wading and fishing birds appear in ever greater numbers each year. Passing under the drawbridge out to the Rockaways, we saw three peregrine falcons perched on the steelwork. And what of Central and Prospect Parks, home to squirrels, raccoons, opossums, the occasional coyote, hundreds of songbirds and warblers during the spring and fall migrations, and the ever present red-tailed hawks, this ecosystem’s apex predators, for whom the parks’ abundant supplies of rodents and pigeons provide an easily accessible source of food?

For me, the presence all around us of this unseen but vibrant natural world constitutes one of the city’s great underappreciated joys. Preoccupied as many of us are with the work and cultural opportunities which New York provides, we walk obliviously through the living world around us. As the city greens, there are more and more chances to enjoy the literal birds and bees. The Hudson River parks which now stretch from Tribeca up into Washington Heights provide bird habitat, while the abundant plantings on the Highline showcase native plant species and pollinators. The new Brooklyn Bridge Park offers not only green space for the neighborhood, but also a buffer zone against storm surges of the type which so decimated low-lying parts of town during Superstorm Sandy. The receding marshes of Jamaica Bay have for centuries provided similar cover.

Our city experiences numerous contradictory pressures. Every year the population grows, requiring that our boroughs become both denser and taller to accommodate this influx. At the same time, quality of life concerns drive these same urbanites to express increasing desire for green spaces and reduced pollution in our air, land, and water. So far, city and state officials are balancing these priorities, although conflicts between those who tend community pocket gardens and those who want to build on them signal a new front in this tug-of-war. I don’t know the long term solution, but I do know this: all of our lives are immeasurably enriched by brushes with the natural world. Watching the turtles in the Turtle Pond, walking through the blooming cherry trees in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, catching sight of egrets or herons outlined against the red light of a sunset, these experiences lower our blood pressure, cause us to slow down, remind us of the connectivity of all things. It’s one of our city’s most precious gifts, if we are only open enough to receive it.

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Photo credit: Randy Arthur

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