Water sloshes against the sandy shores as mallards swim by in pairs. Blue jays dart between trees as geese strut, marking their territory. It’s a quiet spring morning at Swindler Cove, a place that could be mistaken for the Catskills if not for the car horns coming from the Harlem River Drive as dawn transitions to rush hour.
Located on the west bank of the Harlem River in Inwood, Swindler Cove fills about a third of the 15-acre Sherman Creek Park. In the middle of its two-acre mudflat stands a green-and-red boathouse. A grass mesh blankets the mudflats closest to the shore, forming a bed for recently planted cordgrass. Wooden stakes connected by strings with flapping neon-colored flags surround the young cordgrass to guard against hungry waterfowl. Goose tracks suggest the flags are doing more waving than shooing.
Canada Geese are regular visitors to Swindler Cove and are a threat to newly planted grass. Brandon Alexander
These brightly colored flags are designed to discourage animals from the area. Brandon Alexander
The newly planted cordgrass is part of the Living Shoreline project—a plan started in 2017 by the New York Restoration Project (NYRP), an organization founded by actress Bette Midler that restores city parks and green spaces. Living Shoreline seeks to bring life back to Swindler Cove’s coast. “Our primary goals are to protect the land and stop erosion,” said Jason Smith, NYRP’s Director of Northern Manhattan Parks. To succeed, the project will require decades of maintenance and community investment.
The park is a neighborhood respite. Erick Espin, a teacher at Washington Heights Expeditionary Learning School, has lived within walking distance of it for nearly 40 years. He used to bring his infant son to the park in his stroller to help him fall asleep; eight years later, they both still enjoy trips there. “There’s interaction with nature,” he said. “We’ve gone to the beach. You can touch the pond. I want them to have that, and I love being able to do that with him.”
Swindler Cove is bordered by the East River and Harlem River Drive. NYRP/ Ben Hider
The five acres of Swindler Cove are among the last salt marshes left in Manhattan after centuries of building over them, particularly on the borough’s southern tip. The cove is also an example of a long-forgotten marsh undergoing revitalization to stem the effects of climate change and to reconnect the community to a natural landscape.
Sherman Creek Park was once part of “Scullers Row”—a stretch of the East River in uptown Manhattan dotted with marinas during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. As interest in watersports waned, many docks were abandoned or repurposed, including those at Swindler Cove. After the boat clubs left, the park fell into disarray. Contractors and others illegally used it to discard tires and construction materials.
Swindler Cove in the early 1950s. NYRP
Over time, the docks were abandoned, leaving the cove in disarray. NYRP
By 1996, the neglected park had come to the attention of NYRP, and—in partnership with the New York State Department of Transportation—the group cleared out debris, rehabilitated the landscape, and built paths and benches. Edwards Santos, the Sherman Creek Park manager, said that when they first started work in what is now the children’s garden, contractors would ask where they could dump materials.
In 1996 NYRP was first made aware of the park. NYRP
Residents and volunteers cleaning up Sherman Creek Park in 1996. NYRP
The $10 million investment had transformed the space into a lush forest with areas for activities by 2000. It was nearly unrecognizable to neighborhood residents. “People would hang around the gate,” said Santos. “They would say, ‘Oh, I thought this was private.'”
Edwards Santos, the Sherman Creek Park manager, performs some maintenance around the children's garden. Brandon Alexander
Restoring the park’s greenery was considered a success, but in 2009, Bill Young, a wetlands scientist monitoring the marsh for the state, noted that parts of the marsh were failing. Some tree roots were almost entirely exposed along the shore where the marsh had eroded. This was concerning because just as trees release carbon when they are cut or burnt, wetlands reintroduce stored carbon into the atmosphere as they wash away.
Marshes, in fact, are considered acre-for-acre more effective at removing carbon from the atmosphere than reforestation. They also provide some protection to nearby areas by reducing the impacts of flooding, storm surges, and wind, and they can be a first line of defense against rising sea levels.
Over the last 50 years, interest in wetland protection has sparked restoration projects across the U.S.
"Wetlands have not been appreciated for many centuries,” said Judith Weis, professor emerita of biological sciences at Rutgers University. “We learned late in the game to keep and preserve them and how important they are.”
The only refortification options available to marshes are expanding toward the water, moving inland, or growing taller to match the height of the rising water. Some coastal restoration projects opt for the first option by adding soil, sand, or even mulch made from discarded Christmas trees to expand the shoreline. But that is expensive. Moving inland isn’t an option for developed and paved areas like Sherman Creek Park, which is confined by the Harlem River Drive.
This tree's roots have been exposed by erosion. Brandon Alexander
This leaves most marshes with elevation as their only option. One of the most effective ways for marshes to accomplish this growth is by planting cordgrass. The tall, hardy plants are bright green throughout summer before turning limp and straw-like in the winter. Dead cordgrass creates a layer on which subsequent cordgrass can grow. It’s a slow process, but according to a 14-year study by the National Centers for Coastal Science, salt marshes can grow taller at the same rate or faster than sea-level rise. However, cordgrass alone may not be enough for Swindler Cove and similarly degraded urban salt marshes.
This inlet was able to withstand the storm surges brought by Hurricane Sandy in 2012. Eventually the dead cordgrass will help this area grow taller. Brandon Alexander
Installing artificial oyster reefs is another method that’s been rapidly gaining traction. Oysters stack together and form a natural barrier against erosion-causing waves. Oysters reefs also encourage biodiversity. They can purify around 50 gallons of water daily, filtering pollutants like nitrogen from the water and providing an ideal habitat for tiny creatures. Over time, a food cycle can develop as the smaller critters attract animals like shellfish and crab, which eventually brings more birdlife.
Before Europeans settled in New York, oyster reefs were ubiquitous along the coast. Now organizations are trying to bring back the bivalves. Last summer, the Billion Dollar Oyster Project, founded in 2012, partnered with NYRP to install artificial oyster reefs—called castles—along Swindler Cove’s shore. Hundreds of these Lego-like cinder block structures serpentine through the mudflats. Smith said he was encouraged by their success in naturally attracting several thousand oysters and hopes they will survive multiple winters and, as more oysters arrive, form a more substantial reef.
Oyster reefs are a natural barrier against flooding. Brandon Alexander
These oyster castles have already attracted oysters. Brandon Alexander
So far, the Living Shoreline project has spent around $200,000 to clean up, plant cordgrass, and install the oyster castles. It’s a small area, so finding funding can be difficult. That means community support is critical.
“It’s important to try to connect people to the water,” said Chester Zarnoch, a professor of biology at Baruch College. Zarnoch routinely tests the carbon levels at Swindler Cove and other city wetlands to determine their carbon sequestration efficiency. “We need people to care. We need people to be stewards.”
Stewardship is built on more than one-time interactions. Community engagement needs to be consistent for it to be meaningful, Smith said. Organizations must always be thinking of ways to improve that relationship.
But it can be a struggle to build trust for projects that take a long time to initiate. It took the Living Shoreline project about eight years from when Young first noticed the problem until construction began because of government bureaucracy. “We’ve got to make the approval process faster,” Smith said.
Obed Fulcar, a bilingual special education teacher, founded Friends of Sherman Creek Conservancy in 2005 to provide his former students with an opportunity to serve and invest in their community. Each year, in partnership with the city’s Department of Parks and Recreation, students dedicate a day to cleaning up the park. “When you involve young people in restoration, they become proud. It creates ownership,” Fulcar said.
A family plants flowers in their plot in the Riley Levin Children's garden. Brandon Alexander
Espin’s work aims to build the same kind of connection. The Washington Heights Expeditionary Learning School offers a weeklong course in which students provide ideas for what they want to see in their neighborhood. . Their current project is to revamp the stretch of 182 Street from Broadway Avenue to Highbridge Park by planting saplings in tree pits and adding tree guards. The goal, Espin said, is to create a pathway that ushers the community into green space and for the students to build a connection to nature.
Although the pandemic shut down these partnerships for a time, NYRP has become active in the community again. The organization is now trying to establish a citizen science coalition and is encouraging neighborhood volunteers to help with Sherman Creek and Highbridge park maintenance. And the children’s garden, where contractors once dumped debris, is now an urban agriculture education center.
Like building community trust, the process of wetland restoration is long. Marshes can take around two decades to become functional and to have some biodiversity. And they need constant monitoring and attention.
Smith envisions the future of the cove as a gathering place where people enjoy nature and the water. Some days that that vision seems not too far off. On a recent warm Sunday afternoon, a man lay on the shore at the cove with his fishing rod at his side, a group of women celebrated at a brunch picnic nearby, and a family planted yellow flowers in their garden plot.
Swindler Cove's pier looks out onto the Bronx's Roberto Clemente State Park. Brandon Alexander