The bay itself was originally the easterly entrance to Coney Island Creek, which was long and minimally navigable through the 20th century. A map from 1898 shows that numerous inlets protruded from the bay into the community. From the late 19th century through the early 20th century there were plans to turn the creek into the "Gravesend Ship Canal". The plan including re-dredging the creek into a canal running in a straight east-west line and filling all the marsh land either side of the creek to expand the urban grid to the edge of the canal. However, this never happened. Squan Creek, a tributary of the Coney Island Creek, ran through the Sheepshead Bay neighborhood. While Squan Creek was infilled in the 1920s, its route is still evidenced by Sheepshead Bay Road's crooked route through the street grid, as well as the presence of several dead-end streets that used to abut the creek's route.