Marine Park

Marine Park surrounds the westernmost inlet of Jamaica Bay, which at the turn of the century was of great interest to developers who began making elaborate plans to turn Jamaica Bay into a port, dredging Rockaway channel to allow large ships to enter the proposed harbor. Speculators anticipated a real estate boom and bought land along the Jamaica Bay waterfront. Fearing that the relatively pristine marshland around Gerritsen Creek would be destroyed, Frederick B. Pratt and Alfred T. White offered the city 150 acres in the area for use as a park in 1917. The prospect of a new park inspired developers to erect new homes in the area, although park improvements were slow to follow. Fill deposited in the marshlands in the 1930s and new land purchases increased the park's area to 1822 acres by 1937. That year the Board of Aldermen named the site "Brooklyn Marine Park." A series of additional land transactions, including the 1974 transfer of 1024 acres to the National Park Service for inclusion in the Gateway National Recreation Area, have stabilized the area of Marine Park at 798 acres, including land underwater.

Over the past sixty years, portions of Marine Park have been improved with recreational facilities, while other areas have been conserved to protect wildlife and plant life. The parks amenities include a 210-acre golf course, baseball ball fields, basketball, tennis, and boccie courts, and a nature center. The highlight of the park is surely the nature trails established along Gerritsen Creek, where park goers may observe a wealth of flora and fauna.