10 Nearby Places to Celebrate 100 Years of National Parks

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It is the 100th Anniversary of the National Park Service, the agency that runs America’s national parks, national forests, and historic sites.

Maybe you can’t get away this summer to visit Yellowstone or the Grand Canyon, but there is plenty to do within a short drive. While we may not have the big parks near here, what we do have is choice. Here are 10 parks or historic sites run by the National Park Service that are within about 100 miles of the Hudson Valley.

1. FDR Home and Presidential Library: Just up the river a bit in Hyde Park is Springwood, the family home of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and his Presidential Library and Museum, the first president’s library ever built.

2. Val-Kill, Eleanor Roosevelt’s home: The only historic site dedicated to a first lady, Val-Kill was Eleanor’s retreat. There is a shuttle bus that runs between FDR’s Springwood and Val-Kill.

3. Vanderbilt Mansion: While you’re in Hyde Park, you might like to see how the other half lived during the Gilded Age. The Vanderbilt Mansion has architecture and landscape that illustrates the political, economic, social, and cultural changes that occurred in the decades after the Civil War.

4. Gateway National Recreational Area: This national park stretches across the mouth of New York Harbor from New Jersey to Staten Island to Jamaica Bay. It includes Sandy Hook’s fine beaches, Fort Tilden, Riis Park in Queens, and Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge. There is camping in all three parts of the park. Gateway also has its own mobile app!

5. Saint Paul’s Church: This National Historic Site is right in Mount Vernon. The church was built in 1763 and was used by the Americans, British, and Hessians during the Revolution to house troops and as a hospital.

6. Lower East Side Tenement Museum: If the Vanderbilt Mansion shows how the upper crust live, this museum tells the tale of many of our ancestors. Between 1863 and 1935, the building that is the heart of the museum was home to about 7,000 people from more than 20 nations.

7. Weir Farm: This National Historic Site, designed and preserved by artists, is the only national park dedicated to American painting. The 60-acre farm is in nearby Wilton, CT, and was owned by American Impressionist J. Alden Weir.

8. Thomas Edison National HIstorical Park: This site in West Orange, NJ, is an easy drive from the Hudson Valley. The park includes Edison’s estate and the laboratory where everyday things like the lightbulb and recorded sound were invented.

9. Martin Van Buren National Historic Site: Van Buren was the eighth President of the United States and presided over some of the important political changes before the Civil War. Take a tour through his home, Lindenwald, located in Kinderhook, NY.

10. Statue of Liberty National Monument: Why wait for your cousin from Milwaukee to come for a visit one of the great American places? Take a day and enjoy a trip to the big lady with the torch. However, you need advance reservations to get into the pedestal, museum, or up to her crown. This national park includes Ellis Island Immigration Museum, the point of arrival for 12 million immigrants coming to the United States.

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