Hudson River Valley As National Park

Prospect for National Park in our own backyard By Paul M. Bray Ken Burns’ film, “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea”, came at a time when the National Park System is approaching its centennial in 2016 and is transforming from saving natural wonders like Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon and Yosemite to becoming a presence throughout the nation. In fact, our own backyard from Rodgers Island off Fort Edward to the southern-most boundary of Westchester County will be studied for possible inclusion as a unit of the National Park System under legislation sponsored by mid- Hudson Congressman Maurice Hinchey. This may sound absurd if you think of national parks as western natural wonders. It isn’t absurd if you know the new direction of the National Park System over the last couple of decades and what a national study commission co-chaired by former U. S. Senators Howard Baker and Bennett Johnson anticipate for our park’s next 100 years (www.visionfortheparks.org). The Baker-Johnson commission visited the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area established in 1978. They found a “mosaic of living communities and protected lands” with the National Park Service owning only 14% of the 150,000 acres within the park boundaries. The remaining land is managed “through creative partnerships among national and state parks, nonprofits and volunteers”. National parks are not only nationally owned lands, but also an educational and inspiring “idea” that can be applied in living communities with a 21st Century national park role ‘to build human capital’. The Commission also visited the Lowell National Historical Park where local leaders enlisted the National Park Service in an effort to revitalize an historic and gritty city. Today uniform National Park Rangers are found in Lowell revealing a chapter of American History for city residents and visitors alike. The Commission found the Service’s “traditional role of guardian of our nation’s heritage-flora, fauna, and culture-is an idea that has evolved and should continue to grow to meet the needs of the future. We can be better educated, live in more viable communities, slow climate change and its impacts, expand our idea of history to include all our stories, and preserve our continent’s biodiversity by making logical additions to the park system, while inviting all Americans to participate.” The world class natural and cultural Hudson River Valley should be one of these additions. This tidal River flowing both ways is ecologically rich with rare and threatened flora and fauna. Its scenic landscape inspired the world renowned Hudson River School of Art and it offers great recreational opportunities. Troy and its neighboring communities making up Riverspark are known as a birthplace of the American industrial revolution. A 1996 study of the Hudson River Valley preceding the designation of the Hudson River National Heritage Area called the Valley, “the landscape that defined America”. Becoming a unit of the National Park System will shine the light of recognition on the Valley it deserves and, with the many public and private partners in the Valley, the National Park Service can help connect the dots between communities, natural settings, historic sites and areas and the River into a dynamic educational and recreational setting to serve this and future generations. The Service will be as Baker and Johnson have declared, “more catalyst and convener”.

In the 1930s former Albany Mayor Erastus Corning, then a State Senator, saw the bigger picture of the Hudson Valley. He tried to establish a regional planning entity. Others like former Governor Nelson Rockefeller also tried and failed to advance a regional vision of the Valley. Beginning in the 1980s when he was an Assemblyman, Congressman Hinchey grasped an expansive Valley vision and succeeded to realize it by creating, first, the Hudson River Estuary Program, then the Hudson River Valley Greenway and, when he got to Congress, the Hudson River Valley National Heritage Area. On the 400th anniversary of Europeans arriving on the Hudson River, Hinchey is continuing the effort he started and is engaging the National Park Service to do for us what it does best: “acting as convener, catalyst, and storyteller to help create places where the past and future frame the present”. Paul M. Bray is founder of the Albany Roundtable civic lunch forum. His e-mail is [email protected]