Defining real estate to include underwater land silently transfers bay bottoms.

Evidence

The commission had the right to “acquire…real estate,” section eight said. But section ten said that “the term real estate as used in this act shall be construed to embrace all uplands, lands under water…and all real estate heretofore or hereafter acquired or used for railroad, street railroad, telephone, telegraph or other public purposes….” And the words “lands under water” were significant. Under legal precedent, owners of land fronting on the Great South Bay owned the land offshore to the distance of one mile—and if the commission owned land fronting on the bay, it therefore would own part of the bay itself, including the baymen’s “sacred” bay bottoms. — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker, 778