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Barren Island is a peninsula and former island on the southeast shore of Brooklyn in New York City. Located on Jamaica Bay, it was geographically part of the Outer Barrier island group on the South Shore of Long Island. The island was occupied by the Lenape Native Americans prior to the arrival of Dutch settlers in the 17th century. Its name is a corruption of Beeren Eylandt, the Dutch-language term for "Bears' Island". Barren Island remained sparsely inhabited before the 19th century, mainly because of its relative isolation from the rest of the city. Starting in the 1850s, the island was developed as an industrial complex with fish rendering plants and other industries, and also as an ethnically diverse community of up to 1,500 residents. Between the mid-19th century and 1934, the island housed industrial plants that processed the carcasses of the city's dead horses, converting them into a variety of industrial products. This activity led to the still-extant waterbody on the island's western shore becoming nicknamed "Dead Horse Bay". A garbage incinerator, which became the subject of numerous complaints because of its odor, operated on the island from the 1890s to 1921. The Barren Island community became known as South Flatlands during its final years. By the 1920s, most of the industrial activity had tapered off, and landfill was used to unite the island with the rest of Brooklyn. While most residents were evicted in the late 1920s for the construction of Floyd Bennett Field, some were permitted to stay until 1942, when the airfield was expanded as a wartime base of the United States Navy. No trace remains of the former island's industrial use. Since 1972, Floyd Bennett Field has been part of the Gateway National Recreation Area, managed by the National Park Service.

Dead Horse Bay is a small body of water off Barren Island, between the Gerritsen Inlet and Rockaway Inlet in the New York City borough of Brooklyn.

Floyd Bennett Field is an airfield in the Marine Park neighborhood of southeast Brooklyn in New York City, along the shore of Jamaica Bay. The airport originally hosted commercial and general aviation traffic before being used as a naval air station. Bennett Field is currently part of the Gateway National Recreation Area's Jamaica Bay Unit, and is managed by the National Park Service (NPS). While no longer used as an operational commercial, military, or general aviation airfield, a section is still used as a helicopter base by the New York City Police Department (NYPD), and one runway is reserved for hobbyists flying radio-controlled aircraft. Floyd Bennett Field was created by connecting Barren Island and several smaller islands to the rest of Brooklyn by filling the channels between them with sand pumped from the bottom of Jamaica Bay. The airport was named after Floyd Bennett, a noted aviator who piloted the first plane to fly over the North Pole and had visualized an airport at Barren Island before dying in 1928; construction on Bennett Field started the same year. The airport was dedicated on June 26, 1930, and officially opened to commercial flights on May 23, 1931. Despite the exceptional quality of its facilities, Bennett Field never received much commercial traffic, and it was used instead for general aviation. During the interwar period, dozens of aviation records were set by aviators flying to or from Bennett Field.Starting in the 1930s, the United States Coast Guard and United States Navy occupied part of the airport. With the outbreak of World War II, Bennett Field became part of Naval Air Station New York on June 2, 1941. Floyd Bennett Field was a hub for naval activities during World War II. After the war, the airport was used as a Naval Air Reserve station. In 1970, the Navy stopped using Bennett Field, though a reserve center remained until 1983, and the Coast Guard remained through 1998. Several plans for the use of Bennett Field were proposed, and in 1972, it was ultimately decided to integrate the airport into the Gateway National Recreation Area. Floyd Bennett Field reopened as a park in 1974.Many of the earliest surviving original structures are included in a historic district listed on the National Register of Historic Places, being among the largest collections and best representatives of commercial aviation architecture from the period, and due to the significant contributions to general aviation and military aviation made there during the Interwar period. Bennett Field also contains facilities such as a natural area, a campground, and grasslands.

Gerritsen Creek is a short watercourse in Brooklyn, New York City, that empties into Jamaica Bay. The creek has been described as one of the "fingers" that formed the original shoreline of Jamaica Bay. The creek lies just beyond the maximum extent of the Wisconsin Glacier.

The Mill Basin Bridge is a seven-lane, fixed girder bridge in Brooklyn. It is owned and maintained by the New York City Department of Transportation (NYCDOT) and spans Mill Basin inlet. Completed in February 2019, the span replaces a Bascule bridge originally constructed in 1940. The bridge carries passenger vehicles via the Belt Parkway and pedestrians and cyclists via the Jamaica Bay Greenway.

The Historic Aircraft Restoration Project is an aviation museum located in Hangar B at Floyd Bennett Field in New York, New York.

The Marine Parkway–Gil Hodges Memorial Bridge (originally and often referred to as the Marine Parkway Bridge) is a vertical-lift bridge in New York City, New York, that crosses Rockaway Inlet. The bridge, which opened on July 3, 1937, connects the Rockaway Peninsula in Queens, with Flatbush Avenue to Floyd Bennett Field, Belt Parkway, and the Marine Park neighborhood in Brooklyn. The bridge is designated as New York State Route 901B, an unsigned reference route.The center span is 540 feet (160 m) long and is normally 55 feet (17 m) above the water but can be lifted to a height of 150 feet (46 m) above water level. With its distinctive twin towers (which house the vertical-lift machinery), the bridge has become an iconic landmark and symbol of the Rockaways.The bridge is owned by the City of New York and operated by the MTA Bridges and Tunnels, an affiliate agency of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. The operation of this bridge includes the maintenance of the Marine Parkway from the toll plaza to Jacob Riis Park. Though a city-owned and operated bridge, it connects Floyd Bennett Field and Jacob Riis Park, which are both part of the National Park System's Gateway National Recreation Area.

Mau Mau Island, also called White Island, is a small uninhabited island in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, located between Gerritsen Creek and Mill Creek in the Marine Park recreation area. Historically, the area around Mau Mau Island was a salt marsh with shifting topography. The island came into existence permanently after 1917, and most likely formed in 1934 as dumping led to the current shoreline.The area was uninhabited by European settlers until the late 1700s, when a mill and bridge were built. It was donated to the City of New York in the early 1930s, along with much of Marine Park, by Alfred Tredway White and Frederic Pratt with the requirement that it become parkland.In the 1930s, sand excavated during construction of the Belt Parkway was added to the island. Subsequently, patches of asphalt were laid on top to prevent the sand from blowing onto the nearby Marine Park Golf Course.In 2011, the New York City Parks Department began a restoration project on the island, with the goal of restoring salt marsh and bird habitat.

Rockaway Inlet is a strait connecting Jamaica Bay, wholly within New York City, with the Atlantic Ocean. It separates the Rockaway Peninsula in Queens from the Floyd Bennett Field (formerly Barren Island) in Brooklyn. Rockaway Inlet is bounded by Brooklyn to the north and Rockaway Peninsula to the south. It is the entrance to Jamaica Bay, and most of the inlet is within the boundary of Gateway National Recreation Area. Its entrance is marked by a light on a jetty extending southward from Rockaway Point. The entrance channel extends westward of the jetty and is marked by lighted buoys. It has a depth of about 15 feet midchannel with a shoal of only one foot. In 1968 a light failed and the tanker Mary A. Whalen ran aground, resulting in a case entitled United States v. Reliable Transfer Co. about dividing damage payments.The inlet is spanned by the Marine Parkway–Gil Hodges Memorial Bridge.

Plumb Beach (sometimes spelled "Plum") is a beach and surrounding neighborhood along the north shore of Rockaway Inlet, in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. It is located near the neighborhoods of Sheepshead Bay and Gerritsen Beach, just off the Belt Parkway. Plumb Beach was originally part of a small island until Hog Creek was filled in during the late 1930s, connecting the beach to the rest of Brooklyn. Since 1972 it has been a part of Gateway National Recreation Area, though the parking lot and greenway that provide primary access to the shore are the responsibility of the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation and the New York City Department of Transportation. The neighborhood is part of Brooklyn Community District 15, although a section of the beach is not part of a Community District.In May and June, horseshoe crabs climb onto the beach to mate. That beach is often subjected to heavy beach erosion, as incoming storms often blow large amounts of water up the Rockaway Inlet past the beach into Jamaica Bay. In the summer, the beach attracts kiteboarding enthusiasts, as the southerly sea breeze makes the area ideal for this use.

Marine Park is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. The neighborhood lies between Flatlands and Mill Basin to the east, and Gerritsen Beach, Midwood, and Sheepshead Bay to the south and west. It is mostly squared off in area by Gerritsen Avenue, Flatbush Avenue, Avenue U and Kings Highway. The neighborhood's eponymous park is the largest public park in Brooklyn. Charles Downing Lay won a silver medal in town planning at the 1936 Olympics for the planning of Marine Park.Marine Park is largely inhabited by ethnic groups such as Italians, Irish, Greeks, and Jews. The area is part of Brooklyn Community Board 18.

Roxbury is a community on the Rockaway Peninsula in the New York City borough of Queens originally settled by Irish immigrants in the early 20th century. The neighborhood is just west of the Marine Parkway–Gil Hodges Memorial Bridge and adjoins Fort Tilden. It is an inholding within the borders of the Breezy Point Unit of Gateway National Recreation Area, of the National Park System. The area was severely affected by Hurricane Sandy in 2012.Roxbury is part of the Breezy Point Cooperative, a private property owning corporation of residents. Of the roughly 2,000 homes in the cooperative, Roxbury makes up around 400 of them. Specific parking stickers are required to park in the community. Roxbury, like other parts of the Rockaway Peninsula, has a significantly larger proportion of white residents compared to other parts of Queens.