The Path Forward

Gateway National Recreation Area (Gateway or GNRA) is a complex place and an audacious promise. Spread across over 26,000 acres, four counties, three New York City boroughs, and two states, it is comprised of five administrative units. The park encompasses an astonishing mix of properties, uses, visitors, neighborhoods and urban contexts. Its premise – to bring a national park experience to the heart of the country’s largest city – has always been fraught with programmatic, management and political challenges.

Regional Plan Association (RPA) is proud to be considered one of the parents of Gateway. RPA’s planning and advocacy for urban parkland in the 1960s and ​‘70s helped establish the interest in such a park and later the organization supported it during its early years. The National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA), the leading voice of the American people for protecting and enhancing our National Park System since 1919, opened an office in New York City in 2004 and immediately made Gateway a focus of their national agenda. NPCA’s engagement is an important signal of the growing importance of urban parks in the National Park System as well as among state and local parks all across the country.

Our collaboration comes at an important time for Gateway. The National Park Service (NPS) will soon be embarking on its revision to Gateway’s General Management Plan (GMP), the guiding document for NPS activities in the area. This will be the first time in a generation that NPS has systematically revised its master plan for the park. This is a huge opportunity.

First and foremost, it’s a chance to ensure that the great potential of the park is realized, and that the visitor experience at Gateway matches the experiences at other iconic national parks. This rethinking also comes at a time when a number of public agencies and private organizations are proposing new initiatives in and around the harbor. Notable efforts include PlaNYC, the Jamaica Bay Watershed Protection Plan, as well as the Army Corps of Engineers, Port Authority and Harbor Estuary Program’s Comprehensive Restoration Plan for the NY / NJ Harbor.

To seize this moment, NPCA, in partnership with Columbia University and the Van Alen Institute, recently completed a design competition entitled ​“Envisioning Gateway.” The competition generated some truly innovative ideas for what it means to be an urban national park, interventions that incorporate the latest in ecological design and address the reality of a changing climate.

The competition focused on the future of Floyd Bennett Field in the Jamaica Bay Unit of GNRA and its juxtaposition to the adjacent Wildlife Refuge. These two areas are emblematic of both the potential and challenges that all of Gateway faces. Floyd Bennett Field, arguably one of the most important historic aviation sites in the world, provides vital recreation opportunities for local families. The 1,358-acre field also houses a number of incompatible uses and derelict buildings that detract from a national park experience. The Jamaica Bay Refuge area is listed in New York State’s Open Space Conservation Plan and as an Audubon Important Bird Site. The refuge contains a saltmarsh complex supporting a great abundance and diversity of birds and other estuarine species, though pollution from sewage overflows, storm drain outflow, contaminated sediments and wetland loss due to a complex set of factors threaten its ecological health.

This report synthesizes the best of the proposals emanating from the design competition and the public comments generated in the online response forum. Over 2000 respondents voted on the six final designs, completed a survey and provided suggestions for how to improve Floyd Bennett Field, Jamaica Bay and Gateway. RPA undertook this review and synthesis with one eye toward the competition and the other toward the political and logistic realities at Gateway and the many other planning initiatives underway. Our goal is to outline the specific attributes and initiatives that can establish Gateway as the iconic national park it was intended to be.

Our work is informed from many sources. Reconnaissance began with a review of the extensive inventory and briefing book prepared by Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Preservation and Planning (GSAPP). In addition, we examined the ninety-five entries to the design competition and an online survey crafted by NPCA where the public was asked to review and comment on the finalists picked by the competition jury. In this latter case, public input was solicited from the communities surrounding Gateway, the region, and from all across the nation. A summary of the themes that emerged from the competition and the public comments was then presented to a number of critical stakeholders in a series of interviews. Participants included representatives of the National Park Service, the Army Corps of Engineers, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, the Mayor’s Office of Sustainability and Long Range Planning, the New York City Department of Environmental Protection, the National Resources Defense Council and National Parks of New York Harbor Conservancy. Finally, RPA organized a stakeholder discussion with about thirty individuals from the community, civic organizations and city, state and federal agencies to review our draft findings. While this report greatly benefits from the participation of these individuals, our findings are the responsibility of RPA and NPCA.

As with the competition, these findings focus primarily on the assets of Gateway, Floyd Bennett Field and Jamaica Bay. We believe this information can help inform and guide the National Park Service, elected officials and the public as NPS begins scoping the issues to be addressed in Gateway’s upcoming GMP. Public scoping will begin in 2009, and by 2010, NPS will begin to develop alternatives for GNRA in anticipation of a 2012 completion date. But as the success of Gateway will involve many public and private actors, we issue this report with the intent of informing other initiatives, and perhaps most importantly, of creating common ground between the many agencies that have a hand in the management of the Bay.