East Meadow Brook, Merrick

On my childhood trips from Queens to Jones Beach, my family drove on the Meadowbrook State Parkway. The highway’s 12.5-mile route runs mostly through a thickly forested landscape before the trees give way to the salt meadows of the south shore.

The forest on the highway’s shoulders gives the impression of wilderness, but behind it are thousands of tract houses built during the 1950s suburban housing boom. Also not visible from the highway is its namesake stream, East Meadow Brook, which also shares its name with a nearby suburban community. One place where motorists can see it is at the Merrick Road cloverleaf, where it appears as a tidal inlet.

Harbor Haven, Queens

Before JFK International Airport took up more than 5,000 acres of wetland at the northeast corner of Jamaica Bay, the site contained a golf course, fishing shacks, and bungalow communities. Harbor Haven was a collection of homes built along a mile-long canal. No trace of it remains today.

The first photo that I’ve found of Harbor Haven is from Vincent Seyfried’s book Old Queens, showing a structure surrounded by marshland on the edge of Jamaica Bay.