President Nixon visits Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn, New York, part of the then-proposed Gateway National Recreation Area

This photo, taken in 1970, shows President Nixon visiting Floyd Bennett Field, part of the proposed Gateway National Recreation Area. This image was chosen because it illustrates how important this new concept of "recreation areas" was in the National Park Service. Before Gateway NRA there were no Recreation Areas in the National Park Service. This new idea was considered a major breakthrough in recreation planning and it grew out of President Nixon's

"Parks to the People" campaign platform. In creating Gateway NRA, (and later additional recreation areas) the National Park System would have sites near urban centers and would be able to give access to National Parks to people that may not otherwise be able to visit a National Park.

Today, Gateway NRA is a 27,024.73 acre national park consisting of three unconnected units at the entrance to New York Harbor. These units contain beaches, military bases, historic airfields and more. The park was visited last year by over 6 million people and boasts the only wildlife refuge in the National Park Service. The recreation activities include swimming, organized sports, bird watching, kayaking, hiking, learning about the historic aspects of the park, and much more. The experiment in recreation has been a resounding success!