Sherman, While raccoons are certainly indigenous to most places around NY, they were not native to the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge area--they were dumped there from other areas and established a population. So I was told by a ranger at the Refuge.
Here is a picture of a raccoon in a tree that I took recently at JBWR. 
And here is a picture of a muskrat from there (tee-hee, could not resist!). 