Lectures

A Historical Perspective on Water in NYC, with Special Focus on Jamaica Bay

7:00 p.m. (doors open at 6:30.)
Hunter College, 68th Street and Lexington Avenue, southwest corner
Reservations

Introduction by: Catherine Seavitt Nordenson

Lecture by: Dr. Eric Sanderson

In this talk, Dr. Eric W. Sanderson of the Wildlife Conservation Society will attempt to find the soul of New York City in its waterways, some missing, others less so. We will wade into the braided streams of different disciplines -- geology, hydrology, cartography, literature, ecology -- as the Welikia Project does, to reconstruct the historical streamscape of New York. We will also flow forward to make visions of future waters through the Visionmaker Project. Dr. Sanderson will discuss his latest findings from a new book about the Prospects for Resilience for Jamaica Bay, with special reference to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' $3.8 Billion Plan to stabilize the Rockaway Peninsula and reduce flooding with a system of tidal gates.

Eric Sanderson PhD is a landscape ecologist at the Wildlife Conservation Society. He is the author of Manahatta: A Natural History of NYC andTerra Nova: The New World After Oil, Cars, and Suburbs and other books.

Catherine Seavitt Nordenson is an associate professor of Landscape Architecture at The City College of New York and the project director of the Structures of Coastal Resilience initiatives at Jamaica Bay

Sponsored by NYC H2O and the CUNY Institute for Sustainable Cities