Nearly nine million people visit Gateway National Recreation Area as their “gateway” to a national park experience in the New York metropolitan area. The park’s 26,000 acres extend across two states (New York and New Jersey) and three boroughs of New York City: Staten Island, Brooklyn and Queens. From beaches to salt marshes to military and aviation history, Gateway is your gateway to fun. 

This photo was taken by Mark A. Costa two weeks before Hurricane Sandy of Horseshoe Cove at Sandy Hook.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! All of us at the Department of the Interior hope you have a safe and happy holiday.

And what says Thanksgiving like turkey? Once rare, wild turkeys are now common on many national wildlife refuges. This Tom strutted his stuff at New Jersey’s Edwin B. Forsythe Refuge.

Photo: Dendroica Cerulea 

The Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge, where more than 47,000 acres of southern New Jersey coastal habitats are actively protected and managed for migratory birds. Forsythe is one of more than 500 refuges in the National Wildlife Refuge System administered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The National Wildlife Refuge System is a network of lands and waters managed specifically for the protection of wildlife and wildlife habitat and represents the most comprehensive wildlife resource management program in the world. Units of the system stretch across the United States from northern Alaska to the Florida Keys, and include small islands in the Caribbean and South Pacific. The character of the Refuges is as diverse as the nation itself.

Photo: Eric Reuter, USFWS 

On November 7, 2011 Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar and National Park Service Director Jon Jarvis designated Paterson Great Falls National Historic Park as America’s 397th National Park.

Home to one of the nation’s largest and most spectacular waterfalls, Great Falls was harnessed to power new idustries and played a key role in shaping the American Industrial Revolution and building the U.S. economy.

Photo by Tami Heilemann, U.S. Department of the Interior