Gateway National Recreation Area
In December 2006, NPCA conducted an online poll through Zogby International to measure the awareness and opinions of New York City area residents about Gateway National Recreation Area. To view poll results, please click here (PDF 33 KB)Created in 1972, Gateway was one of the first sites in the National Park System established to sustain both natural and urban ecologies while providing recreational opportunities for more than 22 million residents in the tri-state region. Gateway is a 26,600-acre national park that stretches across the New York-New Jersey Harbor created from a conglomeration of abandoned airfields, army bases, city and state parkland, and tracts of undeveloped land. NPCA advocates for the realization of Gateway's incredible potential and is currently working to foster dialogue about that potential through a public design competition.
Gateway presents a significant regional resource with incredible infrastructural, ecological and cultural value in the New York metropolitan region, hosting endangered birds, fish and shellfish breeding grounds, marinas, playfields, and cultural relics. Gateway provides abundant recreational and learning opportunities, from swimming, boating, and fishing to team sports, bicycling, and nature study. Significantly, comprising an array of estuarine wildlife habitats, holly forest, ocean dunes and coastal uplands Gateway is a key avian sanctuary on the Atlantic migratory flyway, where more than 330 bird species have been recorded, making its Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge one of the best bird-watching destinations in the Northeast. Gateway is home also to the nation's oldest operating lighthouse, historic U.S. military forts, and an air museum that trace aviation's early days including New York City's first municipal airport.
It is also the site of combined sewer outfalls, treated wastewater effluent, abandoned buildings, degraded habitat, drowned marshes, former landfills and vast asphalt runways--simply a few of the threats facing Gateway.
