Park sights in New York City
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Central Park
Like the city’s subway system, the vast and majestic Central Park, an 843-acre rectangle of open space in the middle of Manhattan, is a great class leveler – which is exactly what it was envisioned to be. Created in the 1860s and ’70s by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux on the marshy northern fringe of the city, the immense park was designed as a leisure space for all New Yorkers, regardless of color, class or creed. And it’s an oasis from the insanity: the lush lawns, cool forests, flowering gardens, glassy bodies of water and meandering, wooded paths providing the dose of serene nature that New Yorkers crave.
Olmsted and Vaux (who also created Prospect…
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Bryant Park
European coffee kiosks, alfresco chess games, summer film screenings and winter ice-skating: it's hard to believe that this leafy oasis was dubbed 'Needle Park’ in the ’80s. Nestled behind the show-stopping New York Public Library building, it's a handy spot for a little time-out from the Midtown madness.
It's a shamelessly charming place, complete with a Brooklyn-constructed, French-inspired Le Carrousel offering rides for $2, and frequent special events, from readings to concerts. This is where the famed Fashion Week tent goes up every winter. It's also the site of the wonderful Bryant Park Summer Film Festival, which packs the lawn with post-work crowds…
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Hudson River Park
Stretching from Battery Park to Hell's Kitchen, the 5-mile, 550-acre Hudson River Park runs along the lower western side of Manhattan. Diversions include a bike/run/skate path snaking along its entire length, community gardens, playgrounds, and renovated piers reinvented as riverfront esplanades, miniature golf courses, alfresco summertime movie theaters and concert venues. Visit website for a detailed map.
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Carl Schurz Park
Idyllic gardens and walkways make-up this placid riverside park that was designed in part by Calvert Vaux, one of the landscape architects behind Central Park.
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East River Park
In addition to the great ballparks, running and biking paths, 5000-seat amphitheater for concerts and expansive patches of green, this park has got cool, natural breezes and stunning views of the Williamsburg, Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges. A drawn-out renovation brought great nighttime lighting and surprisingly clean bathrooms to the mix.
Although flanked by a looming housing project and the clogged FDR Dr on one side and the less-than-pure East River on the other, it’s a cool spot for a picnic or a morning run.¶
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West Harlem Piers
On the site of a former milk factory, this 2-acre waterfront oasis has parkland, fishing spots, bike lanes and running paths. It is part of a narrow chain of pier parks along the Hudson River that link down to Battery Park, making it possible to bike all the way downtown without ever having to dismount.
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Holcombe Rucker Park
For die-hard fans of basketball, the riverside courts at Rucker are a venerated spot, consistently delivering some of the most exciting street ball games in the city. Throughout its history, NBA stars like Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Kobe Bryant have all stopped in for hoops.
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Columbus Park
This is where outdoor mah-jongg and domino games take place at bridge tables while tai chi practitioners move through lyrical, slow-motion poses under shady trees. Judo-sparring folks and relaxing families are also common sights in this active communal space originally created in the 1890s and popular with local residents. Visitors are welcome, though (or at least ignored).
An interesting note is that the Five Points neighborhood, home to the city’s first tenement slums and the inspiration for Martin Scorsese’s Gangs of New York, was once located at the foot of where Columbus Park is now. The ‘five points’ were the five streets that used to converge here; now you’ll…
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Madison Square Park
This park defined the northern reaches of Manhattan until the island’s population exploded after the Civil War. It has enjoyed a rejuvenation in the past few years thanks to a renovation and re-dedication project, and now locals unleash their dogs here in the popular dog-run area, as workers enjoy lunches – which can be bought from the hip, on-site Shake Shack – while perched on the shaded benches or sprawled on the wide lawn. These are perfect spots from which to gaze up at the landmarks that surround the park, including the Flatiron Building to the southwest, the art deco Metropolitan Life Insurance Tower to the southeast and the New York Life Insurance Building…
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Tompkins Square Park
This 10.5-acre park honors Daniel Tompkins, who served as governor of New York from 1807 to 1817 (and as the nation’s vice president after that, under James Monroe). It’s like a friendly town square for locals, who gather for chess at concrete tables, picnics on the lawn on warm days and spontaneous guitar or drum jams on various grassy knolls. It’s also the site of basketball courts, a fun-to-watch dog run (a fenced-in area where humans can unleash their canines), frequent summer concerts and an always-lively kids’ playground. The park, which recently underwent a facelift, wasn’t always a place for such clean fun, however. In the ’80s, it was a dirty, needle-strewn…
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Bowling Green
New York’s oldest – and possibly tiniest – public park is purportedly the spot where Dutch settler Peter Minuit paid Native Americans the equivalent of $24 to purchase Manhattan Island. At its northern edge stands Arturo Di Modica's 7000lb bronze Charging Bull, placed here permanently after it mysteriously appeared in front of the New York Stock Exchange in 1989, two years after a market crash.
The tree-fringed triangle was leased by the people of New York from the English crown beginning in 1733, for the token amount of one peppercorn each. But an angry mob, inspired by George Washington’s nearby reading of the Declaration of Independence, descended upon the site…
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Sara D Roosevelt Park
Spiffed up just in time for the arrival of its tony new luxury-condo neighbors, this remade little park is a place that most New Yorkers will remember as more of a junkie’s spot for scoring than an actual plot of green space. But it’s joined the ranks of other rejuvenated ‘needle parks’ – such as Bryant Park and Tompkins Sq Park – and is now a three-block respite from urban chaos.
Grab an ethnic picnic-to-go at any of the nearby food spots and settle into a shady corner; if you’ve got kids with you, there’s a nice little playground that’s perfect for letting off steam.
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Liberty State Park
A less crowded approach to the Statue of Liberty is via Liberty State Park, which can be reached by car, taxi or a combination of the PATH train and light rail in New Jersey; call or check the website for details.
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Brooklyn Bridge Park
This 85-acre park is one of Brooklyn’s most talked-about new sights. Wrapping around a bend on the East River, it runs for 1.3 miles from Jay St in Dumbo to the west end of Atlantic Ave in Cobble Hill. It has revitalized a once-barren stretch of shoreline, turning a series of abandoned piers into public park land. Two of these (Piers 1 and 6) were open at the time of writing; others were scheduled to open in 2012 and 2013. Once completed, it will be the biggest new park in Brooklyn since Calvert Vaux and Frederick Olmsted designed the 585-acre Prospect Park in the 19th century.
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