CBH Talk | Eric W. Sanderson on Brooklyn’s Lost and Future Waterfront

In honor of Earth Day, join renowned landscape ecologist Eric W. Sanderson for a visual journey to pre-1609 Brooklyn with its landscape shaped by water, wetlands, and rich ecological systems, followed by an exploration of the inspiring efforts to reclaim and reimagine Brooklyn’s waterfront today. 

Presented in partnership with Brooklyn Greenway Initiative and the NYC Greenways Coalition, and moderated by The City’s climate reporter Samantha Maldonado, Sanderson will draw on new research and visual renderings from his forthcoming book Before New York, a five-borough sequel to his groundbreaking Mannahatta.  

Focusing on four key Brooklyn sites—Wallabout Bay, Coney Island, Sunset Park, and Red Hook – Sanderson will shine a spotlight on how the pre-colonial shoreline functioned, and what that history can teach us now. He and Maldonado will explore how critical gaps in Brooklyn’s waterfront greenway, all vulnerable coastal areas, might be transformed through nature-based solutions. His research, much of it sourced from the collections of the Center for Brooklyn History and the Brooklyn Historical Society, offers a powerful framework for understanding how the borough’s ecological past can inform more resilient and imaginative waterfront planning today.

The program will also spotlight the Brooklyn Greenway Initiative’s advocacy to complete the Brooklyn Waterfront Greenway and its 2016 transformation of the Naval Cemetery Landscape in the Brooklyn Navy Yard into a thriving natural area, pollinator meadow, and public green space. Now nearly a decade old, this project stands as a compelling model for reclaiming underused urban land and restoring ecological function along the greenway. BGI Executive Director Hunter Armstrong will make a brief introduction about the organization's on-going work.

Above image: Eric Mehl / thinkhypothetical.com for Eric W. Sanderson’s Before New York:  The Natural Geography of the City (Abrams, anticipated November 2026)

 

About Brooklyn Greenway Initiative

Brooklyn Greenway Initiative advocates for completion of the Brooklyn Waterfront Greenway as well as the expansion of a network of safe, beautiful, and functional greenways across Brooklyn and throughout New York City for people of all ages, abilities, and backgrounds.

 

 

About the NYC Greenways Coalition

The NYC Greenways Coalition is a collective of more than 50 greenway-aligned groups focused on completion and continual enhancement of an equitable greenway network in New York City.

 

 

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Participants

Eric W. Sanderson is an ecologist who sees nature through the city. He currently serves as the Vice President for Urban Conservation at the New York Botanical Garden, where he also directs the Center for Conservation and Restoration Ecology. Sanderson is the author of the bestselling book Mannahatta:  A Natural History of New York City (Abrams, 2009) and is currently working on the five-borough sequel, Before New York:  The Natural Geography of the City (Abrams, exp. 2026). His work has been profiled in The New Yorker, National Geographic magazine, NPR, BBC, and The New York Times; his TED talk has more 3 million views. He has published more than 60 papers and technical reports addressing problems in urban, wildlife, and landscape conservation, drawing on experiences from Mongolia to Tanzania to Patagonia to Brooklyn. Sanderson earned his Ph.D. in ecosystem and landscape ecology from the University of California, Davis. Learn more about his work at urbanconservation.nybg.org.

 

Samantha Maldonado is a senior reporter at the digital, nonprofit news outlet THE CITY, where she covers climate, housing and politics in New York City. She also teaches at the City University of New York's Newmark Graduate School of Journalism. Previously, she covered energy and environmental policy for Politico. Her reporting has appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, the AP, and CNN. She was a Global Exchange Fellow with the Urban Design Forum and a Climate Economics Journalism Fellow at New York University Stern School of Business.