History, Natural History & the Arts
St. Francis Woodlands, a former Franciscan Friars property in the Staten Island Greenbelt, is full of hidden ecological treasures.
The 25-acre property features a 0.4-mile elevated boardwalk and viewing platform that make the forested environment and upland swamp habitats accessible to all visitors. [Read more…] about A Natural Sanctuary: Staten Island’s St. Francis Woodlands
Wildlife cameras and conservationists along the Bronx River captured footage of a North American beaver (Castor canadensis) near the Mitsubishi Riverwalk in the Bronx Zoo, marking the first confirmed resident since a previous short-time resident disappeared in 2018.
Biology student and Bronx River Alliance intern R.J. Hawkins found the new beaver on trail cameras set April to May. A fresh tree gnawing and saplings cut down also proved a beaver was living and working in the area. [Read more…] about Bronx Beavers: Rewilding the Bronx River
A quick glance at Instagram shows some odd hauls from Dead Horse Bay. They’re not windowpane flounder or diamondback terrapins or cockle clams local to the waters. They’re rainbows of vintage marbles, shards of heirloom ceramics, and even rusted bicycles from the era of black and white television.
Scour Reddit from the past year alone and find posts about Dead Horse Bay mudlarking — that is, scavenging the shore for interesting, possibly valuable items. [Read more…] about Dead Horse Bay: Polluted and Disgusting, but People Can’t Stay Away
In 2024, 61 brownfields were certified as cleaned-up sites by the New York State’s Brownfield Cleanup Program (BCP).
Thirty-five of the 61 are planned for the creation of thousands of affordable housing units across New York City and the state, an announcement from DEC said. [Read more…] about State Brownfield Cleanups Aid Housing, Preservation
On Tuesday, January 7th, a sergeant with the Lewis County Sherriff’s Office contacted Environmental Conservation Officer (ECO) Shana Kraeger to report a hawk trapped in the deli of a local grocery store in the town of Lowville in Northern New York. [Read more…] about Hawk Rescued from Upstate Deli
Icy stoops and sidewalks are part of the winter experience in New York’s urban communities. Historic masonry stoops are predominantly built of brownstone or limestone with mortar joints.
Over time, many of these stoops have been resurfaced with tinted cement mixtures. All of these masonry materials are porous and tend to be damaged by repeated use of deicing products. Keeping your stoop less slippery while not causing undue damage to your historic masonry means using deicing products and salts thoughtfully. [Read more…] about Protecting Your Historic Masonry From Winter
$15 million is now available for municipalities, Indian Tribes and Nations, not-for-profit organizations, and New York State agencies through the new Community Reforestation (CoRe) Grant Program.
This funding opportunity will support projects that plant new trees and restore tree cover in e. [Read more…] about New Community Reforestation Grant Program
Lake Ontario has profoundly influenced the historical evolution of North America. For centuries it has enabled and enriched the societies that crowded its edges, from fertile agricultural landscapes to energy production systems to sprawling cities.
In The Lives of Lake Ontario (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2024) Daniel Macfarlane details the lake’s relationship with the Indigenous nations, settler cultures, and modern countries that have occupied its shores. [Read more…] about The Lives of Lake Ontario: An Environmental History
You’ll find the American eel (Anguilla rostrata) in all rivers and estuaries around New York City, from the creeks of Jamaica Bay in Brooklyn to the streams at Clay Pit Ponds State Park Preserve on Staten Island. [Read more…] about New York City Wildlife: American Eels
The next time you’re outside in New York City, look up. You just might spot North America’s smallest falcon, the American kestrel. This tiny raptor — no bigger than a blue jay —usually frequents open grassland habitats, but it adapts surprisingly well to city life. Perching on light posts or hovering over grassy lawns, the kestrel uses its sharp vision to spot grasshoppers, mice, and other small prey from more than 100 feet away. [Read more…] about New York City’s American Kestrels
A common but rarely-glimpsed denizen of the New York Harbor is the Atlantic horseshoe crab (Limulus polyphemus). This prehistoric-looking creature, which is more closely related to spiders than to crabs, has changed little over the past 450 million years.
Since before dinosaurs walked the earth, the horseshoe crab has scuttled around shallow seas on its six pairs of legs, feeding on marine invertebrates with its jawless mouth, and sensing the world around it with its ten eyes. [Read more…] about New York City Wildlife: Atlantic Horseshoe Crabs
The Kentucky coffeetree (Gymnocladus dioicus) is rare throughout most of its natural range. In New York City, however, it’s commonly planted as a street tree — almost 10,000 of them are scattered throughout the five boroughs.
At Marsha P. Johnson State Park, coffeetrees line the iconic central walkway. These hardy urban trees have an extraordinary history. Indigenous people, including the Dakota, Meskwaki, Omaha, Pawnee, and Ho-Chunk, used the seeds of coffeetrees as food and medicine. [Read more…] about New York City’s Kentucky Coffeetrees
Dozens of boxes of paper files and computer discs containing campaign records, strategic plans, letters to the editor, action alerts, and lots and lots of maps were among the materials turned over to the Library of Congress from Aaron Mair’s home office and his Adirondack Council office in Albany recently, all in crates bound for the Library of Congress Manuscript Division. [Read more…] about Albany Activist Aaron Mair’s Papers Now At Library of Congress
An Western Michigan University shows that the tiny house trend isn’t new. “In the 1920s, sociologist and social reformer Caroline Bartlett Crane (1858 – 1935) designed and promoted what we would now consider a tiny home as part of a larger effort to provide adaptable, affordable housing in the United States,” writes S. N. Johnson-Roehr in JSTOR Daily. [Read more…] about The Tiny House Trend’s Roots In Rochester, NY
Cities are always changing. In architecture everything gives way and nothing is fixed. Impermanence is the only constant. Every new generation tinkers with the aesthetics of urban space (or lack of it) to create its own place. At the same time, the fabric of the city is resilient and able to harness its own transformative power which gives it a unique character. The history of Second Avenue is a vibrant example. [Read more…] about NYC History: The Stuyvesant Farm to East Village Punk
Brooklyn‘s Sunset Park really is a park, on a hillside facing the sunset, but it’s also busy avenues, schools and churches and hospitals, thousands of homes, commerce and transportation hubs, down to and including the vast, flat, industrial waterfront of Bush Terminal (later Industry City). [Read more…] about Brooklyn’s Sunset Park: A New York City High Point
In the 1990s, psychiatrist Mindy Thompson Fullilove came to realize that the “urban epidemics” she was studying had roots in an earlier era, when the federal urban renewal program resulted in the destruction of hundreds of Black and low-income communities.
Since then, many scholars have followed her lead, including urban planner Tanya McGee, whose recent essay opens with a description of how displacement combined with disinvestment has proved “detrimental to the well-being of Black families for generations to come.” [Read more…] about The History and Harm of Federal Urban Renewal Policy in New York State
The consequences of climate change and environmental degradation will have inordinate effects on cities.
Urban areas are likely to see a range of social, public, and environmental impacts, including, but not limited to, human migration and displacement, cultural disruptions, and urban flooding. [Read more…] about Inequality, Urban Heat Islands, and Crime
Artificial light at night has a profound effect land-based life – from birds to fireflies to humans. But a new study suggests we need to widen our view to include light pollution‘s effect on coastal marine ecosystems, impacting everything from whales to fish, coral to plankton.
This new synthesis of marine light pollution science is published in the journal Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems. [Read more…] about Study: Light Pollution Threatens Coastal Marine Systems
City life favors species that are adaptable and not too fussy about what they eat, among other characteristics. A worldwide consortium of scientists calls the resulting collection of traits an “Urban Trait Syndrome.” Their study includes data from 379 cities on 6 continents, with the largest data set coming from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s eBird program. The work is published in Nature Communications. [Read more…] about City-Dwelling Wildlife Demonstrate Urban Trait Syndrome
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