Wednesday Night Tours: The Billion Oyster Project

Oysters are versatile creatures: Known aphrodisiacs, they’re usually the most sophisticated of dollar-apiece happy-hour snacks and have more than a little to do with studding the ears and necklines of a lot of women on the Upper East Side. The multipurpose mollusks are also an ecological boon, creating massive reefs that filter water, provide a habitat for thousands of marine species and protect against storm surge. (In fact, had the boroughs’ once-bulky barrier of bivalves not been decimated by a lethal combo of overconsumption and pollution, Hurricane Sandy may have been a very different story.) Tour Brooklyn Bridge Park’s oyster gardens with Sam Janis of the Billion Oyster Project, a group that’s working to restore the hefty number of underwater organisms to local waters over the next 20 years, to learn how these tiny ecosystem engineers are essential to our city’s more resilient future. Enter at Pier 1.