A New Postindustrial Nature: Remembering the Wild Waterfront of Hunters Point

Abstract

This essay explores engagement with postindustrial landscapes and conceptions of nature at Hunters Point, a formerly vacant waterfront site in Queens, New York City. Chronicling and documenting a number of appropriations and transgressive practices at this postindustrial site, it argues for the necessity of vacant spaces within dense contemporary cities, like New York. Vacant or marginal spaces, particularly those on the water's edge, offer opportunities for environmental engagement that are not available in traditional or emerging parks and public spaces, and speak to basic human impulses or needs to convene with the natural environment in which we live.