Great Kills Park
Nothing like iconic Central Park, and certainly not bustling urban respite Bryant Park, ecologically rich Great Kills Park, part of the Staten Island Unit of Gateway National Recreation Area, is 580 acres of fantastic recreational opportunities – a marina, four public beaches, public boat launch, fishing and kayaking areas, a model airplane field, wild-flower strewn nature trails, and numerous ball fields…set amongst the serenity of woods, marshlands, beaches, and dunes that run along the south shore for over two miles.
In the warmer months, the beach area’s various concessions open; the Ranger Station is accessible year-round. Home to the only osprey nesting site on Staten Island and a birder’s paradise, the area is popular with a wide variety of feathered residents-full and part-timers alike, including horned larks, buntings, egrets, purple sandpipers, raptors of all shapes and sizes, catbirds, ducks, pheasant, warblers, red knots and oystercatchers, ruby-throated hummingbirds, tree swallows and purple martins; the list is almost as endless are the possibilities you will find at Great Kills-Dutch for “Many Creeks”- a new favorite outdoor escape venue-in New York City!
