The Gateway National Recreation Area is a dual-state and tri-borough national park meant to showcase the Greater New York Harbor for all area residents. It includes the Sandy Hook peninsula of New Jersey that is the outer boundary of New York's Harbor, Long Island's Jamaica Bay that is a wildlife refuge, and Staten Island's parks that offer opportunities to visit historic forts and wildlife nature areas. All together, the group of parks is known as the Gateway National Recreation Area. A conservation organization is holding a public design competition for Gateway National Park. more ›

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: A stabbing at Canal and Broadway, a naked EDP in Brooklyn, and a car into scaffolding at 54th and 8th in Manhattan
• Interesting story about the state NOW endorsement for the Democratic candidate and the city NOW endorsement for the Republican candidate in today's special election for an Upper East Side Assembly seat
• The soaking NYC got from tropical storm Barry may have caused a wall collapse in Staten Island
• A twenty-something pair of designers (one from Japan, one from Brooklyn) won the competition for Gateway National Recreation Area's new design
• Would you pay $25,000 for Assembly Leader Sheldon Silver's fund-raiser?
• A new online magazine for the hip New Yorker who likes to fish (literally), aptly named This is Fly [Via Complex]
• A Brooklyn resident who recently graduated with honor from John Jay College has vanished in Florida
• Criss Angel emerged from his cement box in Times Square; eh, Blaine there, done that

A few weeks ago, the New York Aquarium and Kinsborough Community College went out to count harbor seals in the NYC area. The Staten Island Advance tagged along and found nine seals in mid-March. (Last year, there were 20 seals in the first formal seal count by Aquarium Curator Paul Sieswerda, who says about this year's count, "Likely there are more out fishing at the time we happened to look.")

The seals are drawn to the peaceful isolation of Hoffman and Swinburne islands just off the coast of South Beach, in view of Coney Island Park, the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge and passing cargo ships destined for one of the country's busiest ports. more ›

For the second time in a year a patch of radioactive land has been found in the Great Kills Gateway National Recreation Area on Staten Island. The contaminated area is in a wetland area that was made accessible after a wildfire last week. more ›

Well, Gateway National Recreation Area is right in our neck of the woods, extending in three New York City boroughs and into northern New Jersey. It is a good place to start your quest for the perfect patch of sand and cooling waters. more ›