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This proposal advocates for Gateway to be re-designated as an educational and scientific research center. This new role for the park would expand the National Park Service's definition of stewardship to include ecological innovation and activism, and would attract a new kind of visitor to the park.
The National Park service currently operates 20 types of National Park – four types of which can currently be found within the New York Megalopolis. New York City alone has more than 1,700 parks, playgrounds and recreation facilities across the five boroughs. City Parks’ properties total more than 28,000 acres.
Add to this proposed new flagship open spaces like Fresh Kills, the Highline, Governor’s Island, Brooklyn Bridge Park and the Greenpoint-Williamsburg waterfront redevelopment – as well as the 20 or so existing New York State parks within the metropolitan area – and the question of GATEWAY’S role within the New York Megalopolis moving forward into the 21st century becomes considerable.
Capital investment in public open space at the scale currently seen within New York is both worthwhile and commendable. However, is the continued development of conventional parkland alone enough to sustain the transformation and changes that the megalopolis will undergo over the next century?
In addition to stewardship and preservation, we propose cutting-edge science and active research. We propose GATEWAY to become a new type of national park – an infrastructure as much as an amenity.
GATEWAY should be re-designated a NATIONAL ECO-URBAN RESEARCH ZONE – a territory that both promotes stewardship of existing natural and native resources, but also engages in the active exploration of the relationship between dynamic ecosystems and ongoing anthropologic urbanization.
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