Recently, I was at Flushing Meadows-Corona Park and took the opportunity to walk to Meadow Lake for the first time since I am such a huge advocate for urban nature. What I saw was amazing. I was blown away by the beauty of the lake and was able to admire the backdrop of the Unisphere and the New York State Pavilion against the line of trees and glistening water.  That particular day, there were local kids learning how to row as part of a crew team. It was a beautiful sight indeed.  As I absorbed the park and all of its glory, I began to wonder how the lake ended up in this seemingly random location, and what the impact of the man-made lake was to the surrounding natural environment. So I did a bit of research and found results that were not as bright as the reflective surface of the lake…

Meadow Lake in Flushing, Queens has an interesting story due to the history of Flushing Meadow’s development.  When the Dutch and English settled in this region of Queens, the land was robust with native plant species and natural marshlands that filtered water coming in from Flushing Bay. However, in the early 20th century, it became the famous ash dump mentioned in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby. Development paved over the natural environment, and disrupted the free ecosystem services that were provided by the flora and fauna of Flushing Meadows.

When New York City’s most famous and prolific urban planner, Robert Moses decided to develop Flushing Meadows into a recreational space, several fast-paced changes occurred to the ash-ridden area. Flushing Meadows was cleaned up, cleared out, and replaced with park space, walkways, parking lots, and two lakes – Willow Lake and Meadow Lake – by fixing the water level in the former wetland complex with a tide gate near the high tide mark.  These bodies of water became aesthetic centerpieces of the Worlds Fair in 1939. They also served as rudimentary storm water treatment plants, where run-off from the surrounding highways (i.e. the Grand Central Parkway) was able to settle, allowing “cleaner” water to flow back into the Bay, but the sediments remained in the lakes.  Development of this scope generally has tremendous negative implications for the environment and its ecological functions especially if biodiversity and environmental sustainability is not part of the agenda. Sure enough, the tide gates created the lakes, but human intervention also generated significant losses for the ecosystems of Flushing Meadows.

According to an ecological analysis done by the Gaia Institute of Meadow Lake, the surrounding soil and lake sediment lack vital nutrients, so the plant life is very uniform, essentially a monoculture, and is constantly subject to invasive species overhaul.  Meadow Lake suffers from eutrophication, a phenomenon that occurs when an excess of nutrients in water results in excess plant growth, which then ultimately leads to the removal of oxygen upon which the fish and other creatures in the water depend. The excess nutrients come from run-off, but it is also a result of the man-made conditions of the lake. Because Meadow Lake was created on top of a marsh, the still body of water allowed for the release of naturally occurring nutrients – namely phosphorus (plants love this stuff!) – overtime. Phosphorus promotes plant growth and the production of oxygen through photosynthesis, but when the excessive amounts of plants die off, they settle into the bottom of the lake and become organic matter that in turn depletes the water of oxygen.   There is also a profuse build-up of plankton because the heavy load of nutrients and low oxygen levels do not provide a conducive habitat for aquatic life to flourish. Due to the lack of biodiversity, the water itself is home to very few types of fish.

So, in a way, my experience with this particular form of urban nature felt like picking between the lesser of two evils.  The first evil is the fact that I was enjoying “nature” that is actually quite harmful to ecosystems, and the second evil is not experiencing any urban nature at all. Anyway, I have concluded that my choice to pursue nature in the city cannot be stopped by a philosophical quandary just yet.  I will continue to seek nature in this concrete jungle for what it’s worth.