Bowery Bay is a

bay A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, a lake, or another bay. A large bay is usually called a gulf, sea, sound, or bight. A cove is a small, circular bay with a na ...

off the

East River The East River is a saltwater tidal estuary in New York City. The waterway, which is actually not a river despite its name, connects Upper New York Bay on its south end to Long Island Sound on its north end. It separates the borough of Quee ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. It is located near the

Steinway Steinway & Sons, also known as Steinway (), is a German-American piano company, founded in 1853 in Manhattan by German piano builder Heinrich Engelhard Steinweg (later known as Henry E. Steinway). The company's growth led to the opening of a ...

neighborhood of

Queens Queens is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located on Long Island, it is the largest New York City borough by area. It is bordered by the borough of Brooklyn at the western tip of Long ...

and is bordered on the west by the Bowery Bay Water Pollution Control Plant and on the south and east by

LaGuardia Airport LaGuardia Airport is a civil airport in East Elmhurst, Queens, New York City. Covering , the facility was established in 1929 and began operating as a public airport in 1939. It is named after former New York City mayor Fiorello La Guardia ...

. Before the construction of LaGuardia Airport in the late 1920s, the shoreline of Bowery Bay and

Flushing Bay Flushing Bay is a tidal embayment in New York City. It is located on the south side of the East River and stretches to the south near the neighborhood of Flushing, Queens. It is bordered on the west by LaGuardia Airport and the Grand Central P ...

, originally called Bowery Bay Beach and later North Beach, was a popular seaside resort. North Beach was the site of a popular amusement park from 1895 to 1915 and was known as "the Coney Island of Queens". The

Marine Air Terminal The Marine Air Terminal (also known as Terminal A) is an airport terminal located at LaGuardia Airport in Queens, New York City. Its main building, designed in the Art Deco style by William Delano of the firm Delano & Aldrich, opened in 1940. Th ...

at LaGuardia Airport was originally constructed along the south end of Bowery Bay to accommodate

flying boat A flying boat is a type of fixed-winged seaplane with a hull, allowing it to land on water. It differs from a floatplane in that a flying boat's fuselage is purpose-designed for floatation and contains a hull, while floatplanes rely on fuselag ...

s. From 1940 until 1945, 'Clippers' operated by

Pan American Airways Pan American World Airways, originally founded as Pan American Airways and commonly known as Pan Am, was an American airline that was the principal and largest international air carrier and unofficial overseas flag carrier of the United States ...

provided trans-Atlantic flights from Bowery Bay to Europe. The eastern edge of Bowery Bay is currently bordered by LaGuardia Airport's

general aviation General aviation (GA) is defined by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) as all civil aviation aircraft operations with the exception of commercial air transport or aerial work, which is defined as specialized aviation services ...

terminal. The western edge of Bowery Bay is the site of the Bowery Bay Water Pollution Control Plant, a

wastewater treatment plant Wastewater treatment is a process used to remove contaminants from wastewater and convert it into an effluent that can be returned to the water cycle. Once returned to the water cycle, the effluent creates an acceptable impact on the environmen ...

operated by the

New York City Department of Environmental Protection The New York City Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) is the department of the government of New York City that manages the city's water supply and works to reduce air, noise, and hazardous materials pollution. Under a 1.3 billion do ...

. The plant opened in 1939 and is capable of treating of sewage per day from northwestern Queens. Luyster Creek, a

subterranean river A subterranean river is a river that runs wholly or partly beneath the ground surface – one where the riverbed does not represent the surface of the Earth. It is distinct from an aquifer, which may flow like a river but is contained within a per ...

, empties into Bowery Bay near the water plant. The

Rikers Island Bridge Rikers Island Bridge (officially named Francis R. Buono Memorial Bridge) is a girder bridge that connects Rikers Island in the borough of the Bronx with the borough of Queens in New York City. The bridge begins in the Steinway neighborhood of Q ...

spans the northern portion of Bowery Bay.

References

Bays of New York (state) Bays of Queens County, New York East Elmhurst, Queens {{QueensNY-geo-stub