This week, City Limits has examined how New York City’s water renaissance is working out in two places that represent our waterfront past and present: Newtown Creek and Jamaica Bay. Here are images from both:

Adi Talwar
Don Riepe of the American Littoral Society navigates the Bay.

Adi Talwar
Broad Channel, the neighborhood that sits in the middle of the bay's vastness.

Adi Talwar
The A train shoots over the bay, connecting Rockaway Peninsula to the subway system.

Adi Talwar
The Bay is a critical habitat for birds, supporting some 325 species.

Adi Talwar
While the bay sits adjacent to several neighborhoods. access to the water is uneven at best.

Guglielmo Mattioli
Willis Elkins of the Newtown Creek Alliance at a point in the creek where its industrial feel gives way to a distant view of Manhattan.

Guglielmo Mattioli
Active industry lines the creek, and any future recreational use of the water will likely have to coexist with commercial barge and boat traffic.

Guglielmo Mattioli
The creek already has a constituency of recreational users, although most observe the water from the shore. Avenues of access to the creek are limited.

Guglielmo Mattioli
The creek is a federal Superfund site, which offers a complex mix of advantages and disadvantages, but certainly doesn't auger for a quick clean-up.

Guglielmo Mattioli
Like many of New York's once neglected and still polluted waterways, Newtown is something people have typically walked or driven over with little thought.