One moment, Dorothy Peteet stood on a mat of squishy grass in Idlewild marsh, on the edge of Jamaica Bay in southern Queens. The next moment she sank to her hips in the cool, sulfuric muck. “Yes, this happens,” Dr. Peteet, one of the world’s foremost experts on marshes, said. “I don’t think I remembered to bring any towels.”A saltwater marsh is an in-between place. For centuries, New Yorkers viewed Jamaica Bay’s swamps as smelly barriers to progress, fit to become garbage dumps only when they couldn’t be drained and paved into highways and airports.

---

Persons: Dorothy Peteet, “, ”, Peteet Organizations: diamondback terrapins Locations: Idlewild, Jamaica Bay, Queens, Yorkers, Jamaica