New York celebrates 100 years of state parks

The state Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation is celebrating its centennial this year with plenty to celebrate. Last year marked the 11th consecutive year of record attendance at state parks, reaching 84.1 million visitors. Randy Simons, who currently serves as the agency’s acting commissioner, has been busy keeping up that momentum and interest in state parks from Long Island to Western New York. City & State spoke with Simons about the agency’s centennial, this year’s solar eclipse and other key factors that have brought visitors to New York’s parks. The interview was edited for length and clarity.

I would love to start out by talking about the centennial. How has the park system changed over time, and what is your office been doing to celebrate?

This is our 100th anniversary. Obviously, we’re older than 100 years old. We date back to 1851, Washington’s headquarters in Newburgh (was) the first historic site in the nation. Niagara Falls (in) 1885 (was the) first state park in the nation. What was happening during that time over 100 years ago was that a lot of those open spaces were popping up in different regions but there was no real oversight. It was local community groups or committees that were set up. In 1924, under Gov. Alfred E. Smith, the New York State Parks Act (was) born. That really was saying, we need a structure to ensure that these open spaces are protected, conserved and preserved in perpetuity and set up regional commissions across New York. I think it was in 1974, the 50th anniversary, that the parks agency (was) really born, in which we have oversight over the entire state park system.

We’re touring the entire year, celebrating a number of different ways. In the parks, you’re going to see a lot of festivals, special events happening all across the system.

What role do parks play in drawing tourists to New York and are there particular destinations tourists tend to come to?

State parks are very unique. We have destination parks people come from all over the world to visit. Niagara Falls is our most visited park, with almost 10 million visitors a year. Jones Beach is the largest public bathing beach in the world, down on Long Island. There are regional parks where people will come from neighboring counties, and there are some that are local parks that are really servicing the direct community.

Eighty-four million came out last year to our parks. When you look at Long Island and New York City state parks, they probably account for about 42% of the visitation, obviously, because of where the bulk of the population is. We were really thrilled last year that the 84 million was a 6% increase, our highest increase on record.

What’s driving this continuous increase in visitation to state parks?

State parks were really one of two safe places that people felt comfortable during the pandemic. It was their home and it was out in a state park. And I think now, post-pandemic, many have been able to reconnect with both the physical and mental wellness that our parks provide. I think what the pandemic taught us, or at least allowed us to do, was reconnect with the importance of this open space in our backyard.

What kind of turnout did you see in state parks for the recent solar eclipse?

We were thrilled. We announced record-setting tourism numbers for that extended weekend. We pulled from April 6-9 because we saw a lot of uptick in travel, particularly in the path of totality. We had nearly 1 million people that came out to the state parks alone over that four-day period. But on April 8 alone, the day of the eclipse, we saw over 325,000 visitors in New York state parks. And that was a 52% jump just on that day alone. I think it was about a dozen parks that reached their capacity on April 8. Now, it’s not uncommon to reach capacity at many of our parks during the summer, but it’s really unprecedented to reach capacity that early in the season. We had been planning that since 2022 and so we were well prepared.