This year, National Park Week takes place from April 16 to 24. At first glance, this event would seem to be irrelevant to New Yorkers. Although the city is the birthplace of public parks—Central Park is the first open space intentionally set aside for everyone to enjoy, and 14% of the city’s land area is devoted to parks—New York is not at the top of the list when considering a National Park visit. But upon further investigation, New York is home to numerous facilities under the jurisdiction of the National Park Service. These include the African Burial Ground, Castle Clinton, Statue of Liberty, Governors Island, and Stonewall National Monuments; Federal Hall, General Grant, and Hamilton Grange National Memorials; the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, and Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Sites.  

The largest of the National Park facilities in New York City is Gateway National Recreation Area. Similar to the genesis of Central Park as the first public park in the nation, Gateway became the first urban recreation area in and near a major population center.

Established in 1972, the Gateway National Recreation Area spans 27,000 acres of beaches, dunes, marshes, wetlands, and historic forts spread between two States. It incorporates Floyd Bennett Field and Fort Tilden in Brooklyn, Jamaica Bay in Queens, Fort Wadsworth in Staten Island, plus Fort Hancock and the oldest working lighthouse in the U.S. at Sandy Hook, New Jersey.

Given its wide-ranging footprint and federal status would there be relevant documentation in the Municipal Archives and Library? The answer is yes. Gateway provides another example of how Municipal Archives and Library collections are relevant not just to local subjects, but also to much of American history.

The first stop in the quest is the always-rewarding Municipal Library vertical files. The “N.Y.C. Parks Gateway National Recreation Area” vertical file contains newspaper clippings and a few ephemeral items ranging in date from the park’s creation circa 1972, through the early 2000s.

The Municipal Archives’ records from the John Lindsay mayoral administration (1966-1973) overlap the park’s establishment in 1972. Lindsay’s papers are arranged in a series typical of twentieth-century mayoral collections, i.e. subject files, departmental files, and general correspondence. Lindsay is unique in one regard however. His collection includes records separately labeled ‘confidential’ subject files.

Searching the Lindsay collection results in one subject file folder and three folders in the confidential series. Among the finds is a 266-page report prepared by the Mayor’s Council on the Environment. Dated November 16, 1971, it is titled, “Gateway National Recreation Area: A Discussion of Problems and Suggestions for Development.” The first page provides a clue to Gateway’s origin: “The idea of an urban park on the shores of New York Harbor has been slow in being realized. It was originally suggested by Mayor Lindsay in 1966 when he wrote to the then U.S. Secretary of the Interior, Stewart Udall, proposing that Breezy Point should be added to the other National Seashores.” The earliest document in Lindsay’s subject files is dated 1969. Would it be possible to find a copy of the 1966 letter?

The search for the 1966 letter provides a good example of how knowledge of mayoral correspondence filing practices at that time can be helpful. Beginning with the administration of Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, mayoral assistants filed correspondence with federal officials as a separate series. In the Mayor O’Dwyer,  Impellitteri and Wagner collections federal correspondence is a subseries within the departmental files. But, for Mayors Beame and Lindsay, it is a subseries within the general correspondence files. 

Although the specific date of the 1966 Lindsay letter was not indicated, the search proved easy. The first item in the 1966 U.S. Correspondence folder, dated August 1, 1966, was the letter from Mayor Lindsay to Secretary of the Interior Udall: “I want to talk to you about adding Breezy Point to the other National Seashores that have been established the past few year, under your leadership of Interior. It would be the first one located near a large City but the fact is, Stew, that the real need for this kind of a facility is among the poor, or lower-middle class, who don’t have air-conditioning in their homes, or a car to take them to Cape Cod, or a house on Fire Island.”  

It took several years, but Lindsay’s suggestion did bear fruit: “[Interior] Secretary Hickel Announces Proposed Gateway National Recreation Area.” (Department of the Interior news release, Tuesday, May 13, 1969.) Subsequent Lindsay correspondence documents the numerous hurdles in making the “proposed” area into a national park. On April 21, 1970, Secretary Walter J. Hickel wrote to Mayor Lindsay: “From all reports that I have, public reaction to the Gateway National Recreation Area proposal has been very favorable … There still remain many small problems confronting this project, however, that need be solved.”

In early 1971, support for the establishment of Gateway came from an unexpected source. In his State of the Union address, President Richard M. Nixon announced the time has come to bring “parks to the people.” 

Letters throughout 1971 address the “small problems” referenced by Secretary Hickel. Condemnation of privately-owned land, particularly in the Breezy Point and Broad Channel sections of Queens area proved especially complicated. “The Broad Channel Community problem is indeed a delicate one that requires careful handling.” (Secretary of the Interior Fred Russel to Mayor Lindsay, December 2, 1970).

The correspondence also shows how Lindsay administration officials in the Parks, Transportation and other departments all contributed to solving the myriad problems. Constantine Sidamon-Eristoff, Transportation Administrator, discussed the merits of a ferry system to bring visitors to the park in a June 25, 1971 letter to Lindsay. (He thought it inadvisable, unless subsidized, and recommended federally-funded improvements to mass transit as a better alternative.) In a six-page memo, dated July 6, 1971, Parks Commissioner August Heckscher supplied Lindsay with a detailed examination of various issues, i.e. Breezy Point, Broad Channel, Great Kills/Hoffman and Swinburn Islands, Floyd Bennett Field, and Jamaica Bay.

Success came after another year. On December 22, 1972, Secretary of the Interior Rogers C. B. Morton informed Mayor Lindsay, “We are pleased to enclose a copy of Public Law 92-592, signed by the President on October 27, 1972, which authorizes the establishment of the Gateway National Recreation Area.” The letter noted that the Act set up a Gateway National Recreation Area Advisory Commission, “composed of eleven members, two of which would be appointed from recommendations made by the Mayor of New York City.” 

The mayoral appointments to the new Commission generated additional correspondence including a letter from Congressman Edward I. Koch, dated May 9, 1973, recommending Leonard E. Ryan to serve on the Commission. “As you know,” Koch wrote to Lindsay, “his brother, the late Congressman William F. Ryan, put great efforts into the development of Gateway, and I know, Mr. Leonard Ryan is most interested in continuing its growth.” Lindsay replied to Koch that he had already made his recommendations and suggested that Mr. Ryan be included among the appointments the Interior Secretary makes from the general public. members.    

Legislative approval for the establishment of Gateway was just the beginning. Developing the recreation area and establishing transportation to the new park took many more years of work. Publications in the Municipal Library collection help detail these necessary efforts. “Review by the City of New York of the Draft General Management Plan for Gateway National Recreation Area: Issues and Recommendations,” (January 1977), and “Transportation Access Study: Data Inventory and Analysis—Gateway National Recreation Area,” (1974), and “Jamaica Bay, a History: Gateway National Recreation Area,” (1981), are three titles of useful resources.

The Municipal Library vertical files also add color to the story. “Gateway Plan Surprises Officials in New York Area,” the New York Times reported on March 29, 1981. The article described how the Reagan Administration’s proposal to divest itself of Gateway drew expressions of surprise and disdain from Congressmen, state and local political leaders and officials of the park itself.  Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan: “This is one country, and it does not start at the Mississippi River and go west. It starts on the Eastern Seaboard.  We are not going to let them take it away,” he added. “If I have to stand on the Senate floor and speak until I am hoarse, we are not going to let it happen.” The proposal was dropped.

Another clipping in the vertical file, from Newsday, on September 27, 1999, reported that Representative Anthony Weiner (D-Brooklyn-Queens) had called for a wildlife first-aid station in Gateway, prompted by a seagull with a broken wing.

The story of the Gateway National Recreation Area is just one example of the broad scope of information in Municipal Library and Archives collections. The dramatic discovery of the African Burial Ground in lower Manhattan in the early 1990s, and eventual designation as a National Monument within the National Park system is another instance of federal and local cooperation. Look for a future blog that identifies Library and Archives collections that tell this story.