STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- As a national park, it's a rusty old Gateway, a watchdog group has concluded.
Gateway National Recreation Area, the expansive coastal park that stretches from Sandy Hook to Jamaica Bay and includes Great Kills Park, Miller Field and Fort Wadsworth on Staten Island, is rated the worst national park in an ongoing survey by the non-profit group.
But the borough's sites are mostly held harmless: Instead, the National Parks Conservation Association cites poor water and air quality in Jamaica Bay near Queens' Kennedy Airport; abandoned military buildings, concentrated in Sandy Hook, N.J., and a chronic shortfall in funding and staffing.
The nonprofit group gives Gateway failing grades for both its natural and cultural resources.
LIMITED SURVEY
The survey includes 28 of the country's 391 national parks and federally protected areas and doesn't yet include such major national parks as Yellowstone, Yosemite and Cape Hatteras (N.C.) National Seashore. The group expects to assess 160 parks over the next four to five years, a spokeswoman said.
The report primarily blames Gateway's "poor conditions" on a lack of adequate federal funding for maintenance of the 26,658-acre park, of which the Island areas account for 2,066 acres. (Hoffman and Swinburne islands, off Staten Island's east shore, also are part of Gateway.)
Though not in the same league as the spectacularly scenic parks in the Western United States, Gateway includes attractions such as the Sandy Hook Lighthouse, the nation's oldest (1764) working lighthouse, and Floyd Bennett Field, which was the city's first municipal airfield.
NEW IDEAS SOUGHT
The NPCA is conducting a design competition for what the group would like to see done to improve Gateway; the results are due in June.
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