Brandon Keim
Terrestrial biped. Freelance journalist. Science, nature, animals & ideas. Co-founder @KittyEatsBugs. Turtles all the way down.
Our era’s iconic national park is hidden in New York City
That anyone can, in less than an hour, go from shouldering through Midtown Manhattan to watching oystercatchers court never ceases to delight me. With that delight, however, comes a certain disquiet. These are interesting times for Jamaica Bay — and for the entire Gateway area, for which I’m using the bay as a shorthand, as the pressures are felt most acutely there. It’s emblematic of nature in an urbanized world, a microcosm of tensions felt not just in America’s national parks, but most everywhere the natural world meets our well-intentioned, big-footed, short-sighted species. And as I watch those oystercatchers, I wonder what will become of Jamaica Bay in the next century, or even in the next few decades.
