Calvert Vaux Park – Brooklyn, NYC
Before development began in the 1820s, Coney Island was desolate barrier island bordering a vast salt marsh that stretched north to what is now 86th Street. Some decades later, the city laid out 85 acres of landfill near this salt marsh, and formed a creek. Calvert Vaux Park was built on this landfill, and is now the home to a variety of environments, including a restored salt marsh, mudflats, and upland habitat, that support a surprising array of wildlife and native plants.
Coney Island Creek flowed through this thousand-acre wetland consisting mostly of a plant marsh known as spartina. Spartina lines the border of the park, and can be even seen growing in shipwrecks.
Two species of spartina are the building blocks of complex ecosystems that provide food and shelter for a variety of wildlife.
In the bottom right hand corner you can see mudflats. These mudflats are part of the reason that this creek can support its salt marsh ecosystem. Mudflats also help in preventing coastal erosion. And every year, they are used by migratory birds as place to crash while migrating to the southern hemisphere.
The spartina found along the creek’s banks was planted as part of a salt marsh restoration.