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Riis Park and Fort Tilden are part of the Breezy Point Unit of the Gateway National Recreation Area. Built by Robert Moses, Riis Park is a popular summer destination for swimming and other beach activities. It is famous for the ethnic diversity of its users, befitting a park honoring 19th century reformer Jacob Riis. Fort Tilden is a historic military base that includes sports fields, community gardens, and significant natural areas - including a mile of undeveloped beach and dunes. Both parks are important places on the Rockaway Peninsula - an area viewed by many as being a relatively unknown and underutilized bit of New York’s waterfront.

Riis Park and Fort Tilden have the potential to be extraordinary places: Atlantic beach sand and surf coupled with historic structures and a diversity of recreational facilities and cultural programming. But, as with all of the National Park Service’s holdings in New York, funding for capital improvements and management in these parks has been difficult to obtain. Some basic services - restrooms, showers, picnic areas - are considered to be of poor quality. Many of the historic buildings are not being used to their potential, most notably the art-deco Jacob Riis bathhouse. The net result is that the National Park Service experience at these parks is not all it could be, and visitor numbers have declined accordingly.

It is an opportune moment to consider ways of improving these parks. The National Park Service will soon select a ferry operator to begin service to Riis Landing - a small section of the Fort Tilden that lies on the bayside of the peninsula. They hope to expand the Riis Landing site by receiving adjacent property now being surplused by the US Coast Guard. This new service will vastly improve access to the park from Manhattan and western Brooklyn. In addition, the reconstruction of the Gil Hodges (Marine Parkway) Bridge will soon be complete, providing an opportunity to revamp the marketing of the park to New Yorkers in southern Brooklyn and Queens.

In order to address these issues, Regional Plan Association (RPA) and the National Park Service (NPS) convened a three-day workshop in May 2001 where expert planners and designers developed proposals for specific design and programming improvements for Riis Landing, Fort Tilden and Jacob Riis Park that will integrate existing and proposed activities and resources, including the new ferry service, programming at Ft. Tilden, and reuse of the now-vacant Riis Park Bathhouse.