Many Americans tend to imagine the harmful effects of climate change as hitting hardest in far away, remote locations—but the necessity of implementing resilient infrastructure is no secret to New Yorkers.
Set apart from yet coexisting with the bustling streets of the island of Manhattan lives Randall’s Island, a park-filled, borderline verdant land of a bit over 500 acres that’s just isolated from the city by the Harlem River, from Queens by the East River and from the Bronx by the Bronx Kill.
Here, authorities and advocates are experimenting through a new program that will see the salt marshes—which once lined the majority of the greater New York area with wetlands, forming a protective buffer from storm surges and erosion—return once again to Randall’s Island’s meager coastline.
Erosion is already evident in much of the shoreline, exposing the roots of doomed trees as the tide creeps ever closer to a sidewalk.
The island, along with its 433 acres of parkland, is managed by the Randall’s Island Park Alliance. It boasts its extensive programs that, in the summer time especially, bus hundreds of city kids to the island to learn about urban ecology, local wildlife and engage in sporty activities.
“Our restored waterfront areas offer natural flood and erosion control, actively clean air and water, provide nurseries for fish, and are sources of food for resident and migrating birds,” a statement reads on Randall Island’s website.
“As a public park that is also an island in the middle of New York City, the Island has enormous potential as a resource for research into issues such as water quality and the success of restoration work in urban environments.”
Cordgrasses, shrubs and seaweed populate the expansive field that sits below the towering Triborough Bridge. The exposed mud is concealed at high tide as seawater rushes in from the Harlem River—and while it may look desolate, it remains one part of an environment that has one of the most robust track records on Earth as a biodiverse and carbon-sequestering ecosystem.
