Spring Creek Park
Fountain Ave., 75 St. bet. Belt Pkwy., Flatlands Ave.,
Brooklyn
Directions via Google Maps
This text is part of Parks’ Historical Signs Project and can be found posted within the park.
Spring Creek Park is located in Northern Jamaica Bay and contains the largest
amount of undeveloped land and wetlands in the northern Jamaica Bay area. The
name Jamaica comes from the area's first inhabitants, the Jameco, or Yamecah Native
Americans, whose name is Algonquin for beaver. The Jameco lived on the northern
shore of Jamaica Bay and along Beaver Stream and Beaver Pond (filled in in 1906).
Jamaica Bay is a shallow tidal wetland of about 20 square miles in area, located
between Brooklyn and Queens. It consists of grassy marshes sheltered from the
Atlantic Ocean by the Rockaway Peninsula. The bay contains many islands, but only
the largest, Broad Channel, is inhabited. The northern half of the island contains
the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge, which has two freshwater ponds and is host to
a large number of shorebirds.