Can the Billion Oyster Project make New York City the oyster capital of the world once again?
A tenth of the way to a billion oysters
New York Harbor was once filled with billions of oysters, providing a feast for the native Lenape people — and then the Dutch, the English and New Yorkers of all stripes. Some biologists estimate that the harbor once contained half of the world’s oysters, according to New York Public Library.
Writers from colonial times routinely describe oysters “the size of dinner plates” in Brooklyn’s Gowanus Canal. The delicious bivalves were sold from street stands, taverns and restaurants. An oyster-fry cook at Downtown Brooklyn’s Gage & Tollner restaurant, which opened in 1879, was said to have shucked sixty-six million oysters in his forty-nine-year career, according to the New Yorker.
It all came crashing down around 1900, due to overfishing, dredging and pollution from the raw, untreated sewage the city dumped into the harbor. One by one, the New York City Health Department closed the remaining oyster beds, and the city’s time as the oyster capital of the world was over.
Bringing them back
On Governors Island, a short ferry ride from Brooklyn’s Pier 6, mountains of oyster shells rise into the air. These shells are curing in preparation for their role as the new homes for millions of baby oysters.