Design Competition
Queens, NY
Envisioning Gateway called for a new master plan and strategy for creating a unified experience for visitors to the Gateway National Recreation Area. The site encompassed Floyd Bennet Field, New York City’s first municipal airport, and later a naval air station. Located at the intersection of the Atlantic Ocean and the Hudson Raritan estuary, Gateway supports a variety of estuarine ecologies – open water, dune, wetland, grassland and forest – that provide critical habitats for fish, shellfish, migratory birds, insects and vegetation. In some cases, these communities are rare or endangered, and recent studies have revealed a deterioration of Jamaica Bay’s marsh islands. GRO’s scheme involved the return of indigenous plant species to the area as well as a strategy of varied flooding as a way of addressing the rising water table.