Design Guidelines Great Kills Park, Staten Island New York, Gateway National Recreation Area

Lane, Frenchman and Associates, Inc.; in association with Laubmann-Reed & Associates, Inc.; Carol R. Johnson and Associates

First envisioned as the recreational centerpiece of the Borough of Richmond by public works czar Robert Moses, Great Kills Park today stands as only a reminder of that ambitious era of public park construction. In the 1930's and 1940's, Moses proposed a sweeping plan to develop a network of parks tied together by an extensive parkway system. While this vision was never fully implemented, early efforts at Great Kills, such as the filling of the salt marsh and extensive dredging of the harbor, created a large park by urban standards and one of the finest small boat harbors in metropolitan New York City. The National Park Service assumed control of Great Kills Park in 1972 as part of the Staten Island Unit of the Gateway National Recreation Area. Rather than building on the pre-World War II park planning concept of grandly formal areas offering multiple facilities, the Park Service pursued a simpler, more contemporary approach to park planning and construction at Great Kills. This approach maintained the beach and harbor for swimming, sunbathing, fishing and boating, and modest facilities were constructed to serve park users. These facilities included playing fields for baseball, softball and model airplane flying, and a network of trails for jogging and bicycling. The success of this approach is illustrated by the more than 500,000 visitors a year to the park. As established in the General Management Plan Amendment for Great Kills, most of the existing man-made infrastructure at the park will be replaced with new facilities over the next few years. A one-time opportunity exists to identify a design theme appropriate both to Great Kills' unique context and its role in the National Park System, and to establish design guidelines that insure that the new facilities result in a unified, coherent park setting. To develop design guidelines for these new facilities, the following methodology was employed: o Relevant historic and contextual data were identified and appropriate design features were highlighted. o Three alternative design themes were developed and presented to the Gateway Recreation Area and Great Kills Superintendents and professional staff from the NPS's Denver Service Center and Northeast Region. This planning and design team selected a design theme direction to be further developed. o The preferred design theme was expanded into building and site guidelines for development and documented in this report.

Design Guidelines Great Kills Park, Staten Island New York, Gateway National Recreation Area

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