New York City is a thriving city filled with diverse people, and it supports a large ecosystem. Yet hidden among the bustling, honking, and ambience of the city, lies one unsung hero.
This hero has a deep history, dating from the original people of New York and continuing through to when the first skyscrapers were built. It has been a part of New York City, quite literally. The husk of its body was used to create streets and grand churches. This hero has protected the coastlines of New York for generations. It has fed millions. It is the oyster.
Oysters are highly nutritious shellfish. They are packed with high-quality protein, vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants. The most popular and heavily harvested species is the Eastern American oyster (Crassostrea virginica), found in Atlantic waters from Canada to Argentina.
They usually grow anywhere around three to five inches in length, but can reach a length of eight inches. However, in the distant past, these oysters could grow up to ten inches long. They were much larger and older than the oysters we know today. New York was especially known for the massive oysters that could be plucked out from the harbors and rivers surrounding the city.
The New York Harbor alone contained half of the world’s oysters; almost 350 square miles of oyster beds covered the harbor’s floor. New Yorkers were notorious oyster eaters; almost one million were eaten in a day. Yet as New York grew to become the oyster capital of the world, The Big Oyster would soon find itself struggling to maintain the massive, sprawling oyster beds it once had.
To understand why oysters are so important to New York, it is necessary to be informed on what they are, what they do, and why oyster populations are declining.
The name oyster is the common name for many different families of salt-water mollusks. These mollusks mainly live in marine or brackish habitats. Some oysters are harvested for consumption while others, called pearl oysters, produce pearls. Most oysters that are harvested are used for consumption.
Oysters are packed with essential nutrients such as proteins, vitamins, minerals, and much more. They are great sources of vitamin B12, zinc, and copper. By eating six oysters, adults can hit and go above the recommended intake of iron, copper, iodine, magnesium, calcium, zinc, manganese, and phosphorus from this shellfish alone. Oysters are also considered a “superfood,” meaning they have an incredible nutrition-to-calorie ratio. 2-3 oysters only have 69 calories for eight grams of protein and two grams of fat.
Not only are oysters great for human health, but they play a large impact in maintaining oceans and large, diverse ecosystems. In New York, oysters helped support many types of fish and sea life.
Oysters are often called a keystone species. Keystone species can be described as the last stable block in a Jenga tower. Once you remove the block, the tower comes toppling down. These species are extremely vital in their ecosystem’s health as they play a huge impact on the ecosystem. If these species are removed, similar to an unstable tower, the rest of the ecosystem collapses.
The main reason oysters are considered a keystone species is that oysters are filter feeders. They act as natural water filters as they filter algae from water. Under best conditions, a single oyster can filter up to 50 gallons of water per day. By filtering the water, oysters allow for cleaner and clearer waters.
These waters can support underwater grasses, much larger oyster reefs, and create a stable bottom for marine populations. Without oysters to filter these waters, algae would be allowed to grow and spread farther out, resulting in an algae bloom. These algae blooms are extremely dangerous because they do not allow sunlight to penetrate the surface of the water, causing aquatic plants to die.
This causes a sudden drop of oxygen, creating hypoxic zones that are deadly to fish and other organisms. Harmful algal blooms also release toxins that contaminate drinking water, causing illnesses for animals and humans. Oysters are key to preventing these blooms from happening, cementing their status as an ecosystem protector.
Additionally, oyster reefs can act as natural barriers around cities like New York City. These reefs can prevent storm surges from hitting land and thus can prevent soil erosion that are caused by these surges. Oysters are small but mighty creatures as they are keystone species, superfoods, and the protectors of shores.
Now that it is more understandable on what makes oysters special, it is easier to understand why they were so sought out. Traveling back in time, the original oyster harvesters were the Native American people who originally lived in Manhattan, known as the Lenni Lenape.
The Lenape people had long been harvesting these shellfish even before European settlers came to their land. The Lenape were known to take oyster shells and create jewelry with them. The Lenape knew about the importance of oysters long before the first settlers arrived in the Americas. As such, they did not overwhelm the oyster reefs around Manhattan and often left them for a while to repopulate.
Once the Dutch arrived and gained territory in Manhattan, they were originally disappointed by the fact that the oysters were not pearl oysters, but they still saw the profits that could be made. These settlers harvested oysters and soon oysters became a primary source of food for all people, both rich and poor.
Life in New York soon revolved around these shellfish and the city became known for the oysters found. Ellis Island and Liberty Island were dubbed Little Oyster Island and Big Oyster Island respectively. Pearl Street gained its namesake as oysters were paved into the road. The oyster shells piled along the streets and in massive piles before city officials decided to turn much of the shells into a mortar paste for building. Trinity Church was built using oyster shell-mortar paste. Lots of oyster shells were also burned for lime, which was later outlawed due to the rancid smell that resulted.
The New York oysters became world-renowned. Oyster bars and pubs popped up all over the city. Instead of hot dog stands, there were oyster carts everywhere, serving fresh oysters to locals and tourists. There were oyster cellars all around the city that advertised “having oysters in every way possible.”
Oysters fed all New Yorkers; these shellfish were not reserved for the rich and upper class. Even people in poverty ate oysters with bread in order to survive. Oysters from New York began to be sold and shipped in neighboring states, and soon, across the country. When people thought of New York, they pictured oysters and a great seaport where the locals ate the most delicious oysters in the world.
The oyster craze of New York came at a cost. The oysters themselves were being depleted from the sheer amount of overharvesting and overconsumption. This problem dates back to the 1600’s when the Dutch Council of the time acted on limiting the number of oysters that were allowed to be gathered due to overharvesting. Through these acts, oyster reefs were allowed to repopulate the area.
However, in the 20th century, a combination of overharvesting, the expansion of the city’s shoreline with industrial materials, and a serious lack of waste management led to the depletion of the region’s oyster beds.
Many outbreaks of disease were attributed to oysters, despite these diseases being a result of trash and sewage that flooded the streets. These diseases resulted in many abandoning the once popular food and the rich of the city refused to eat them, making oysters seem like peasant food.
This horrible mixture meant that by 1927, the last of the New York City oyster beds was officially closed, as the oysters posed health risks if eaten due to pollution. As such, New York City’s oysters had become too contaminated to eat. The Big Oyster was officially crumbling.
As New York City’s harbors became more and more polluted, the passage of the Clean Water Act in 1972 was a major stepping stone to regaining the oyster beds. The act helped somewhat, but New Yorkers were not able to pluck oysters out as they once could in the past. The conservation of the oysters still had ways to go before they would be safe to eat again.
Oysters have seen a comeback in New York due to many initiatives taken by locals and nonprofit organizations. One such organization is the Billion Oyster Project which launched with a long-term goal of adding one billion live oysters back to New York Harbor to repair its ecosystem by 2035. Many of these projects have been launched with the help of volunteers and experts in the field.
People have also taken to using social media as an outlet to share information about the projects and their goals. An example of this would be Blue Clarice, a content creator on YouTube, who has made a video on the topic in a creative way. Instead of a long educational video, Clarice opted to create a dress inspired by oysters to help raise awareness on the topic.
On the topic of the repopulation of oyster beds, Clarice said, “As we count the amount of oysters in the oyster reefs, we are able to see the growth of the oysters. So they start off small but grow to be something big, which is what I included in my dress.”
Blue Clarice has been contributing to many projects like these that are focused throughout the United States. “The goal of these projects is to be able to repopulate the oyster beds for better ecosystems and to be more sustainable. We are really trying to get more younger kids interested in this topic so that more awareness can be spread,” Clarice said, as many of the volunteers that help with the conservation of oysters are high school students.
“We have seen more growth in the Chesapeake oyster beds, and we hope we can do the same with the oyster beds in New York City,” Clarice said, near the end of our interview.
The Lenape, Dutch, and people of the past observed the wonders of the oysters that populated New York; it is pivotal to regain this necessary component of New York’s ecosystem today. The oyster beds have seen growth and are continuing to improve as time goes on, yet there is much more work that needs to be done.
Thanks to the Billion Oyster Project and people like Blue Clarice, there has been a large number of locals and others who have been dedicated to replenishing the oysters of New York to their former glory. Like an oyster bed, the Great Oyster may have collapsed and crumbled, but with more hard work and dedication, it can grow back up to its shining self, a pinnacle of oyster brilliance — one that is rich with history.
Click HERE to see Blue Clarice’s video on the oyster dress.
Like an oyster bed, the Great Oyster may have collapsed and crumbled, but with more hard work and dedication, it can grow back up to its shining self, a pinnacle of oyster brilliance — one that is rich with history.