Folks used to live here in the mid-1800s, and from 1850 through 1930 the area got its name from the near-30 horse rendering plants that used the animal’s carcasses to manufacture glue, fertilizer and hair brushes. The addition of fish oil factories, and the odor caused most to move away.
Around the late-1920s, the city began to use the area as a landfill, dumping trash, and later covering it with beach sand from Jamaica Bay.
In 1950, the landfill burst underwater, and the rubbish has been leaking since, washing up along the shoreline.
A visit during high tide leaves one depressed enough with the sight of glass shards everywhere, but low tide can send one into a fit, as you traverse through a line, two meters thick, of full bottles, old machinery and miscellaneous waste that runs the shore of the entire peninsula.
The area hasn’t lost its reputation for garbage collecting, as a few boat owners have beached their unwanted crafts, which are later hit by visiting graffiti artists, and vandals. The trees are often decorated with beach debris, and the trails are normally a dumping ground for those who feel they carried too many superannuated bottles full of sand before heading back to their car.
Dead Horse Bay is a sight that one must see for themselves to truly get a grasp of what we are doing to our planet.
Photos do not do this unnatural injustice to nature any justice, but here you go anyhow.
