The smallest unit of the National Park System? Photo by Bob Pahre.
It won’t surprise you to know that America’s largest national park is in Alaska. Covering 13.2 million acres, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve is larger than Switzerland.
At the other extreme, America’s smallest national park takes up only a few square yards in Beachwood, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland. The David Berger National Memorial consists of a sculpture on the grounds of the Mandel Jewish Community Center. That’s it.
The sculpture, by David E. Davis, is known as the Berger National Memorial. It remembers David Berger, a weightlifter with dual US-Israel citizenship, who was one of the 11 Israeli athletes killed by Palestinian terrorists at the 1972 Munich Olympics.
Eight Cleveland families, all friends of Berger’s parents, commissioned and paid for the sculpture. It rests on a base of 11 segments representing the athletes who died, one of which is slightly different than the other ten. Resting on the base are five Olympic Rings broken in half. The rings are bent to varying degrees, and the central rings reach for the sky in hope for the future.
Berger’s parents, Dr. Benjamin and Dorothy Berger, were long-time friends of Howard Metzenbaum, who represented Ohio in the U.S. Senate from 1976 to 1995. That fact probably explains how the David Berger Memorial joined the National Park System in March 1980, as part of a larger bill establishing Channel Islands National Park and providing for various small national park items. The establishment legislation for DBNM reads,
“The Secretary of the Interior shall designate the David Berger Memorial located at the Jewish Community Center in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, as a national memorial. The significance of the memorial in preserving the memory of the eleven Israeli athletes who were assassinated at the Olympic games in Munich, Germany, in 1972 is, by this designation, recognized by the Congress.”
That’s the entire legislative intent.
Some will object that DBNM isn’t really part a national park unit. It’s true that the definition of “national park unit” leaves room for interpretation. Depending on how you count, the total number of sites ranges from about 331 to at least 401. That number leaves out a lot of sites and double counts others, so the definition of “national park unit” is subject to some disagreement.
In its defense, DBNM has an NPS-branded website that looks like every other national park unit website. If you go to the list of national parks in Ohio, it’s listed right between Cuyahoga Valley National Park and Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park, both of which are bona fide national park units.
An NPS flyer at other sites, “National Park Service Areas in Ohio,” lists the David Berger Monument. The site lies under the authority of the superintendent of nearby Cuyahoga Valley National Park, though the Mandel Jewish Community Center pays for all upkeep and maintenance. You can even get a National Park Service Passport Cancellation Stamp at the reception desk of the community center.
So, if you can get an NPS stamp there, it has an NPS website, it’s on the list of Ohio national parks on the Internet and in a brochure, and it reports to a national park superintendent . . . . well, it’s a national park unit.
With the Hamilton Grange National Memorial, the David Berger National Memorial is unusual among national park units in having been moved. When the Jewish Community Center in Cleveland Heights closed in 2005, the sculpture spent some time at the McKay Lodge Fine Arts Conservation Laboratory, where it received some restoration work, welding reinforcement, and a fresh coat of corrosion inhibitor. It moved to the Mandel Jewish Community Center in the fall of 2006.
It might move you, too. If your travels take you to Cleveland, the David Berger National Memorial is easily found a few minutes off Interstate 271.
Robert Pahre is Professor of Political Science at the University of Illinois, where he teaches and writes about the national parks.
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Comments
Though assigned to the NPS, technically, this is not a unit of the National Park System and is not counted as one of the 401 units of the National Park System. The complete list of parks is at
http://www.nps.gov/news/researchlinks.htm
If you are going to call the David Berger National Memorial a unit of the National Park System, you should do it with a wink in your eye and your tongue planted firmly in your cheek.
Intersting bit of informaton on this park.Thanks for the post Bob.This is the fun part about this web site the little things a person can learn about our park system good or bad.
More park-barrel parks. Congress should just create a new type of site. They could redesignate this as a national sculpture site. Then there'd be precedent to create more sculpture sites!
By the way, I believe the NPS still shows Thaddeus Kosciuszko NMem as the smallest unit of the NPS.
Chris your probably right but it still is nice to read about these tid-bits of info.
Some of the big named 57 or 58 parks should not be a national park either other than some big wig was throwing his weight around.I'm not saying they were not nice but they should really blow you away to become a National Park.Been to some state parks that can compare.
What's the smallest unit designated as a "National Park?" Hot Springs? Acadia?
At just 5,550 acres, Hot Springs National Park is indeed the smallest of the National Park System's 59 National Park-designated units. Acadia National Park may be smallish as National Park-designated units go, but it still logs in at a respectable 47,000+ acres. That's considerably bigger than Bryce Canyon National Park (~36,000 acres).
The Ice Age National Scenic Trail has an NPS stamp, has an NPS website, is on the web list of NPS areas in Wisconsin, has an NPS brochure, has an NPS superintendent, NPS owns 150+ acres for the "park" and NPS has a General Management Plan for its land but still the Ice Age National Scenic Trail is not an NPS unit. Go figure.
Thanks, everyone for the visit and comments.
drew, they were both part of the same parks bill, too. Coincidence?
Chris, Thaddeus Kosziusko is indeed the smallest one on the "official" NPS list - which has two Denalis, among many other bits of inexplicable inconsistencies.
Bob, thanks for answering the other "smallest" question. As for your first comment, I'll say, "no comment." I know you know how inconsistent the NPS is here - and not always following congressional intent, I might add.
With many of you, I'm not always in agreement with congressional intent. But they do get to make the law.
Someone exolains to me how a steel structure is considered "nature"? I thought the whole concept of national parks was in order to protect nature. It seems that some authorities have a strange view indeed of what is natural ....
It's under the National Park service, but that is NOT a National Park!! I think there are 59 National Parks. I think Hot Springs in Arkansas is the smallest.
Kosciusco is only about 200 square feet in area. It's very non-obvious to me that this is smaller (I haven't actually visited DBNM, though)
The smallest "national park" is Gateway Arch National Park in St Louis at 91 acres. There are 61 units classified as national parks and Gateway Arch is the latest. There are 419 national park units. https://www.nps.gov/aboutus/national-park-system.htm
The David Berger site is considered a national memorial but is not listed as one of the 419 official units. https://www.nps.gov/places/david-berger-national-memorial.htm
The Thaddeus Kosciuszko National Memorial, as Electroman stated above, is considered the smallest unit of the national park system. The National Memorial was authorized on October 21, 1972. It is administered under Independence National Historical Park but is counted as a separate unit of the National Park System. At 0.02 acres (0.0081 ha) 0.02 acre (80 m²), the memorial is America's smallest unit of the National Park System. (Wikipedia).
Bob Pahre, thank you for writing this interesting article and bringing up the question. As others have stated, there are inconsistencies in naming units.