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This proposal focuses on the historical identity of Gateway through a series of earthworks and landmarks on the site of Floyd Bennett Field. Much of Floyd Bennett would become open grassland, with a series of elevated mounds and meadows marking where the sea level has been at different times throughout geologic history. Another series of 'lines' (thin earthwork channels and paths) would be created in the grassland - the length of each line represents the elevation of other parks and monuments within the National Park System. Historic, current and emerging site conditions are layered on top of each other in this proposal, educating visitors as it reveals the very long history and memory of the place that we know as Gateway today.
Our work, a field guide to the landscapes of Gateway, provides tangible connections to pre-existing, ongoing, and emerging site conditions. Three types of connections –– marks –– are suggested to guide the revival of local and regional landscape knowledge: seamarks, landmarks, and ciphers. Located 1000 feet apart along cardinal directions, a field of sixty-two seamarks guide wanderers and inform observers of the locations and heights of future landform modifications. Varying in shape, size, and height, seamarks guide the creation of a midden –– a near-continuous landform traveling the width of the site from the Gateway Marina to Mill Basin. Formed incrementally over a span of 11 years from local channel dredge, the midden serves as index (vertical) of the former Irish Channel bathymetry, datum both within and outside the site, and surrogate for the experience of an otherwise inaccessible landscape. The landmark field situates Gateway’s’ constructed landscape within the context of other national parks and monuments under the care of the Department of the Interior. The proposed series of stamp issues serves as cipher for the reading of Gateway’s local and regional landscapes.
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