Modern-Day Queens
Shows Ice Age Influence

By Fred Pisciotta

Using a volunteer and a few household items, Hadley (r.) shows how a gigantic glacier helped shape the terrain of modern-day Queens during his slide lecture “Queens: The Ice Age Stopped Here” at the Greater Astoria Historical Society. Photos Dan Havlik

‘The very birth of America was driven by the geology of the area," proclaimed Fred Hadley, known as a "pop" geologist, who presented his slide lecture, entitled "Queens: The Ice Age Stopped Here," to attendees at the Greater Astoria Historical Society. Hadley in his lecture explored how the last glacial period shaped Queens and Brooklyn and influenced street and area names, transportation hub layouts, economic and recreational activities and even the American Revolutionary War at the Battle of Brooklyn.

Hadley is not a formally trained geologist. His foray into geology began when he moved to the North Shore Towers, the three high-rise co-op apartment buildings located near the Grand Central Parkway at the Queens/Nassau border. Hadley found out that the towers are built on the highest naturally occurring point in Queens County-265 feet above sea level. "With a natural curiosity of why and how things work, I wanted to know why," Hadley said.

Through research, Hadley discovered that the high point where the North Shore Towers stand is actually part of a terminal moraine, the point at which glacial debris--boulders, rocks, sand and gravel--was deposited by a receding glacier during the most recent Ice Age about 10,000 years ago. The southernmost extent of that glacier left a swath of debris across land that would become known thousands of years later as Brooklyn, Queens, and Long Island. "That’s where the Ice Age stopped," Hadley explained.

The glacier originated at the North Pole, where precipitation in the form of snow accumulated to create it. Hadley explained that when snow reaches depths of 100 feet, it compresses into crystals known as firn by geologists. The tremendous pressure of the built-up snow causes it to take on a plastic quality that eventually causes it to flow, thus becoming a glacier, or river of ice. As the glacier flows, it plucks and bulldozes anything in its path, eventually depositing debris at the point that its southward movement ends.

Pop Geologist Fred Hadley discusses the geological origins of the borough of Queens during his slide lecture “Queens: The Ice Age Stopped Here” at the Greater Astoria Historical Society last Monday.

Terminal moraine topography has had a tremendous influence on local development and activities. According to Hadley, place names such as Brooklyn Heights, Bay Ridge, Ridgewood, Jackson Heights, Bay Terrace, Hillside Avenue and Highland Park, for example, are all derived from the hilly terrain caused by the glacier. Other place names such as Flatlands, Park Slope, and Plainview, are derived from the outwash plain that resulted from the melting ice that flowed to the Atlantic Ocean, causing flattening of the land.

Since the terminal moraine itself is hilly and unsuitable for farming or housing development, master builder Robert Moses, whom Hadley called the second-greatest force to shape Queens’ landscape after the glacier itself, eyed the landscape as perfect for major highway development. Hence the Grand Central and the Jackie Robinson Parkways run along the terminal moraine. Hadley pointed out that because these parkways follow the contorted path of the terminal moraine, they include many treacherous curves, especially the Jackie Robinson (formerly the Interboro Parkway).

The terminal moraine runs from the southwest to the northeast. Roads south of the terminal moraine (i.e., on the flat outwash plain) tend to run parallel to it, and roads north of the terminal moraine tend to fit the New York City grid pattern and run east to west (avenues) or north to south (streets). The flat outwash plain proved to be ideal for airport development also. Floyd Bennett Field, the city’s first municipal airport, and Idlewild Airport (now John F. Kennedy International Airport) were built on the outwash plain.

The game of golf originated in Scotland because of that country’s glaciated, hilly terrain. Golf courses proliferated along the terminal moraine on Long Island for the same reason. Horses, in contrast, require flat land to race on. Aqueduct and Belmont racetracks are built on the flat outwash plain. And since the rocky, glaciated terrain of the terminal moraine is unsuitable for farming, it was deemed ideal for cemeteries, which proliferated in Queens and Brooklyn.

When the glacier began to recede, huge pieces of ice broke off it—calved in geological terms, causing depressions in the ground. The broken pieces of ice eventually melted, filling those depressions with water and creating very deep "kettle" lakes. Lake Success and Lake Ronkonkoma on Long Island are products of those pieces of ice. Along the North Shore of Long Island, rocks that range in size from pebbles to boulders were carried great distances by the glacier. Geologists call them "erratics" because they are alien to the local landscape. Hadley calls them "messengers transported from the Ice Age."

In August 1776, the American army led by George Washington, was outnumbered by British and Hessian forces 25,000 to 5,000 at the Battle of Brooklyn. In an effort to give his far outnumbered troops an advantage, Washington fortified the hilltops and southern slopes of today’s Prospect Park—high ground on the terminal moraine that the British referred to as the Woody Heights of Gwana after a Canarsie Indian chieftain. That maneuver, however, was not enough to battle an overwhelming enemy force coming from all directions. Washington, sensing an incipient massacre, ordered a withdrawal of his troops to Manhattan—an order that saved many lives, and perhaps, according to historians, the American Revolution.

To create his slide lecture, in addition to doing extensive research at libraries and museums, Hadley said he traveled to Alaska in order to get an up close and personal view of glaciers. He also read the book, Annals of the Former World, written by New Yorker magazine staff writer John McPhee, and highly recommended it to anyone interested in the geological history of North America.

After the slide lecture, Hadley provided attendees with a bird’s-eye view of the local terrain, showing a film that he shot from a chartered airplane. The film gave breathtaking views of the things Hadley had spoken about throughout the evening and their relationship to the terminal moraine, such as golf courses, racetracks, airports, and street grids. The final sequence of the film was that of the plane circling around Astoria; Hadley pointed out the building where the Greater Astoria Historical Society meets.