With so many buildings, cars, and people at every corner of the city, it would be impossible to survive without a little greenery and natural beauty every now and then. Luckily, New York City's many parks offer serene respite from the hectic pace of urban life!
New York's "flagship" park of 843 acres, 26,000 trees, and almost 9,000 benches has had a rather checkered history. Planning began around 1868, when city commissioners chose the "Greensward Plan" developed by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux. In the ensuing decades of build...
59th to 110th StreetsEvery visitor to New York has heard about Central Park, but Brooklyn's massive Prospect Park rightfully deserves its fame. Featuring fantastic events, green spaces, and the famous Grand Army Plaza arch at the main entrance to the Park, built in 1892, the "Jewel of Brooklyn" recei...
Grand Army Plaza to Parkside AveA combination of traditional park and repurposed piers, Brooklyn Bridge Park offers spectacular views of downtown Manhattan and the New York Harbor from almost every part of the park. The 85-acre riverside park is now a serious contender for New York's Best Park, with DUMBO'...
1 Main StreetThe High Line is a 1.45-mile-long (22 blocks) abandoned elevated railway, that stretches from the Hudson Rail Yard at 34th Street down through the West Chelsea gallery neighborhood where it continues on to Gansevoort Street in the Meatpacking district. It has recently been develo...
West 30th Street to Gansevoort Street (bet 10th and 11th Avenues)From the City of New York/Parks & Recreation Historical Signs Program: Washington Square Park is named for George Washington (1732-1799), who served as Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War and presided over the Constitutional Convention in Ph...
W. 4th St. (Between University Pl. and MacDougal St.)Summer attractions include Bryant Park Film Festival. As far back as 1686, New York’s colonial governor Thomas Dongan designated as public property the land that is now Bryant Park. Officially dedicated in 1842, it was not until New York City’s powerful parks commissioner, Ro...
40th Street at Sixth AvenueLocated at the southernmost tip of Manhattan next to the Staten Island Ferry Terminal, Battery Park is where the first Dutch settlers landed in 1623 and where a "battery" of cannons was erected to defend what was then called New Amsterdam. Since that time, the area has been known...
Battery ParkNearly forty years after former mayor John Lindsay first laid out the proposal that would turn what was once Welfare Island into Roosevelt Island, complete with a memorial to our 32nd president and former New York governor, whose New Deal reforms created the social safety net and...
Empire-Fulton Ferry State Park, adjacent to the forthcoming mammoth Brooklyn Bridge Park, is a nine-acre waterfront park along the East River in Brooklyn located between the historic Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges. With its sprawling lawn and riverfront boardwalk, Empire Fulton F...
26 New Dock St.From The Fort Greene Park Conservancy, Inc.: Fort Greene Park is located in Brooklyn, New York, on a hill overlooking Wallabout Bay and downtown Brooklyn. It is both a popular neighborhood park and a historically significant site. The thirty acre park is home to tennis courts ...
Washington Park StreetMorningside Park is located in New York City's borough of Manhattan from West 110th to West 123rd Streets between Manhattan Avenue, Morningside Avenue and Morningside Drive. It is one of four designated Historic Harlem Parks. The City received jurisdiction over the 30-acres pr...
Morningside Dr & Manhattan AveIn 1998, the Hudson River Park Act officially created this park, reserving extensive portions of the waterfront exclusively for public recreation, and significantly limiting the types and locations of commercial activities. The Act also designated the river itself an estuarine sa...
Battery Park City to 59th Street along the Hudson River