Great Kills Park

Great Kills Park is a 580-acre park on the southeastern shore of Staten Island, part of the Gateway National Recreation Area managed by the National Park Service. The park encompasses beaches, salt marshes, maritime forest, and a protected harbor that together create one of the most ecologically diverse coastal parks in the metropolitan area.

The park was partially constructed on landfill material deposited in the mid-20th century, and portions were closed in the 2000s when radioactive material (likely from industrial waste used as fill) was discovered. Remediation efforts have addressed the contamination, though some areas remain restricted.

Great Kills Harbor, a large protected inlet within the park, has been a center of recreational boating and fishing for generations. The harbor's calm waters provide shelter for boats and a launching point for fishing trips into Lower New York Bay and the Atlantic Ocean.

The park's natural areas include salt marshes that support shorebird and waterfowl populations, maritime forest, and coastal grasslands. The park is an important link in the chain of protected coastal habitats along Staten Island's southeastern shore.

Great Kills Park provides the kind of large-scale coastal recreation that is one of Staten Island's defining assets: hundreds of acres of shoreline, marsh, and forest where New Yorkers can fish, boat, walk, and experience the natural coast just miles from the most densely built areas of the city.