tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13443698211784676382024-03-08T06:36:51.161-05:00Park OdysseyVisiting the New York City parks. Every last one of them.Jon Sobelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01187212192990576914noreply@blogger.comBlogger318125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1344369821178467638.post-44607736741852019082023-11-21T11:39:00.000-05:002023-11-21T11:39:52.701-05:00Riverside Park SouthIt's been quite some time since we visited Riverside Park for this blog, and we never actually hit the section called Riverside Park South. It has been developed quite a bit in recent years anyway, in parallel with neighborhoods on Midtown's western fringe.
Hudson River Park hits its northernmost border at 59th Street or thereabouts. Walk past the huge Sanitation Department pier at 59th and you Jon Sobelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01187212192990576914noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1344369821178467638.post-52463993346949255062023-10-28T13:17:00.001-04:002023-10-28T13:17:58.765-04:00Starlight ParkStarlight Park, an essential part of the slowly-but-surely developing Bronx River Greenway, officially opened in the spring of 2023 after 20-plus years of work. The result is a unique park of 13 acres hugging both sides of the Bronx River between Concrete Plant Park and the Bronx Zoo.
Starlight Park inherits its whimsical name from an early-20th-century amusement park that use to reside here. Jon Sobelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01187212192990576914noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1344369821178467638.post-65289830851047207242023-10-19T17:03:00.005-04:002023-10-19T17:10:12.580-04:00Garrison ParkNever forgetting the quest that launched this blog project 13 years ago, I continue to seek to visit every park in New York City. And although there have been a few exceptions, each park gets its own blog post. In that spirit, I give you Garrison Park.
Part of the in-progress Bronx River Greenway, a ribbon of parkland that's slowly blossoming along the rejuvenated Bronx River, Garrison itself Jon Sobelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01187212192990576914noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1344369821178467638.post-48997116761745601222023-10-16T10:59:00.000-04:002023-10-16T10:59:21.598-04:00Gansevoort Peninsula Sand BluffJust in the past couple of years the West Village/Chelsea section of Hudson River Park has absorbed the additions of Little Island and Pier 57 Rooftop Park. Now this part of Manhattan has yet another option for outdoor culture: the Gansevoort Peninsula Sand Bluff, a pier off Gansevoort Street with a sand "beach."
This square-ish pier has plenty of seating for picnics, space for the sand-averseJon Sobelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01187212192990576914noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1344369821178467638.post-76553653624827616272023-07-10T08:28:00.001-04:002023-07-10T08:30:47.113-04:00Randall's Island Urban FarmOur previous visits (here and here) to Randall's Island have not included a visit to the island's Urban Farm. We remedied that lapse last weekend for the best possible reason: cocktails. Made, naturally, with ingredients grown right on the little farm (little, but bigger than you imagine on first entering) on that little-talked-about but heavily used island at the nexus of Manhattan, Queens and Jon Sobelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01187212192990576914noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1344369821178467638.post-48320854533064924602022-12-28T09:43:00.000-05:002022-12-28T09:43:09.137-05:00Rapkin-Gayle PlazaThis past July I happened upon a new plaza on East 4th Street, Manuel Plaza, which I have now learned, thanks to Gotham to Go,
is named in acknowledgment of the first North American free Black settlement, known as the Land of the Blacks. The name honors Big Manuel, Clyn Manuel, Manuel Gerrit de Reus, Manuel Sanders, and Manuel Trumpeter, who were among 28 people of African descent who negotiatedJon Sobelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01187212192990576914noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1344369821178467638.post-86055465929774817592022-11-07T20:16:00.001-05:002022-11-07T20:16:49.841-05:00Mariners Marsh ParkHead west on Richmond Terrace. Start from the familiar environs of the St. George ferry terminal (where you'll also find, believe it or not, an outdoor outlet mall). Drive further and further out along Staten Island's north shore, through parts unknown. Eventually pass through the neighborhoods of Mariners Harbor and Arlington.
Then the road creaks through two mysterious swaths of—parkland? Jon Sobelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01187212192990576914noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1344369821178467638.post-77580492945636616952022-10-04T18:33:00.001-04:002022-10-04T18:33:12.917-04:00Manhattan Beach ParkI've been to Coney Island and Brighton Beach plenty of times over the decades – in the case of Coney, since I was a wee kid. Still I had never sojourned further east on that same peninsula to Brooklyn's Manhattan Beach Park. This lapse was finally remedied on Labor Day Sunday, thanks to Mrs. Odyssey who knew the lay of the land (and sea).
Far fewer folks hit Manhattan Beach than crowd its Jon Sobelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01187212192990576914noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1344369821178467638.post-53503796250768634282022-08-18T15:28:00.000-04:002022-08-18T15:28:07.890-04:00Pier 57 Rooftop ParkExhausted from a jostle through the tourist-thronged Little Island? You'd never know it, but right next door is a quiet new oasis with great views and far fewer people.
As of this writing, to reach Pier 57 Rooftop Park you have to follow crude signs a long way around to the side of huge Pier 57.
Privately financed by arrangement with Hudson River Park, the pier's redevelopment is to result inJon Sobelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01187212192990576914noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1344369821178467638.post-24677195085400921142022-07-19T19:43:00.004-04:002022-12-28T09:47:00.771-05:00Manuel PlazaI was walking to the Kraine Theater recently to see and review the excellent 2022 edition of The Fire This Time Festival. Along a stretch of East 4th Street that I've probably walked down a hundred times in my years of covering NYC theater, I stopped short. There on the north side of the street was something that hadn't been there before: a flat tract with a sparkling new Parks Department sign Jon Sobelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01187212192990576914noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1344369821178467638.post-51138171927359383042022-06-23T11:01:00.001-04:002022-06-23T11:01:26.409-04:00Gowanus Waterfront Park and Gowanus Canal Sponge ParkThe waters of the Gowanus Canal may never be pristine. But the neighborhood around it has sure shined up. Case in point: along the canal's west bank, abutting sparkling new condo buildings, now lies Gowanus Waterfront Park.
This two-block stretch of walkways, plantings and benches has already suffered some weathering in its few years of existence. But it's quiet and peaceful, with waterfrontJon Sobelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01187212192990576914noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1344369821178467638.post-52330080528518553322022-04-17T18:16:00.001-04:002022-04-17T18:16:06.506-04:00J. Hood Wright ParkIt's Lin-Manuel Miranda's world now, and we just live in it. That's why everyone knows about Washington Heights by now, right? Well, as it turns out, this northern Manhattan neighborhood, which I thought I knew pretty well after all these years in New York City, has a large park I wasn't aware of – a park where scenes from the film version of In the Heights were shot.
J. Hood Wright Park lies inJon Sobelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01187212192990576914noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1344369821178467638.post-19882701397451574852021-09-12T10:15:00.001-04:002021-09-12T19:23:54.871-04:00Nameless SoHo Park (Bobby Boles Park)Down in SoHo, at the convocation of Watts, Broome, and Thompson Streets just west of West Broadway, sits a small triangular park – a sliver park, as these tiny oases are sometimes called. As near as my research can determine, it's part of the Parks Department's Greenstreets program, though I didn't notice a Greenstreets sign.
Forgotten New York explains that the island is a "result of Jon Sobelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01187212192990576914noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1344369821178467638.post-54308941460695530522021-08-19T11:44:00.000-04:002021-08-19T11:44:26.463-04:00Allison Pond Park, Goodhue Park, and Jones Woods Park
For vanity's sake I'm loathe to compile multiple parks into one post. Writing one discrete post for each park means not only a fairly accurate count of parks visited but also a maximum marker of pride in how many I've covered.
Still, it makes sense to combine Staten Island's Allison Pond Park and Goodhue Park since I couldn't identify the border separating the two. And I've added Jones Woods Jon Sobelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01187212192990576914noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1344369821178467638.post-28686941258252734542021-07-28T09:20:00.001-04:002021-07-28T09:20:41.227-04:00Castle Hill Point ParkCastle Island Point Park was the final reward of our walk that began at the NYC Ferry's Soundview terminal in Clason Point Park, snaked along Snakapins Path through Pugsley Creek Park, and wound around said creek. It doesn't feel like New York City at all as you approach the edge of Castle Point. More like a seaside resort in some almost-rural sort of place.
Here at Castle Island Point one Jon Sobelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01187212192990576914noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1344369821178467638.post-35388169178005052002021-07-26T20:51:00.004-04:002021-07-28T09:24:39.370-04:00Pugsley Creek ParkWatching The Addams Family reruns back in the '70s, I used to think "Pugsley" a funny name. No doubt it was chosen – over the too sexual-sounding "Pubert," as it happens – for its hint of humor. However, as far as I know, there's nothing especially funny about the Pugsley family that is today memorialized by Pugsley Creek and Pugsley Creek Park in the Soundview section of the Bronx, just north ofJon Sobelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01187212192990576914noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1344369821178467638.post-60996540761055856092021-07-22T09:06:00.002-04:002021-07-28T09:22:42.579-04:00Clason Point Park and Waterfront GardenThanks to the NYC Ferry it's now easy for people from around the city to visit some of the parks on the Bronx coast that aren't otherwise easy to get to by public transportation. A few years ago, for example, a visit to Soundview Park required a long subway ride followed by a walk through a neighborhood that seemed saddled with infrastructural neglect.
The ferry's new Soundview line terminates Jon Sobelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01187212192990576914noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1344369821178467638.post-45365959898118214422021-06-30T20:52:00.000-04:002021-06-30T20:52:20.692-04:00Pier 26, Hudson River Park
Recent visits to Steeplechase Pier in Coney Island and the brand-new Little Island in Hudson River Park reminded me that I hadn't talked about another notable new development along the Hudson: Pier 26.
This ecological park, jutting far out into the river off Hudson River Park, opened in September 2020. It endeavors to give an inkling of the natural ecology of the riverbank as Henry Hudson Jon Sobelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01187212192990576914noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1344369821178467638.post-34720288363479280352021-06-24T17:42:00.005-04:002021-06-24T17:42:55.136-04:00Elevated Acre
A garden oasis in the sky in Lower Manhattan's financial district? Just so.
You get to the Elevated Acre at 55 Water St. by a mysterious-looking stairway or escalator you'd never guess leads to a pastoral platform amid the towers of high finance.
In the dark days of the coronavirus pandemic, over the winter when nothing much was blooming and almost no one was working downtown, a few folks Jon Sobelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01187212192990576914noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1344369821178467638.post-31694495279075395512021-06-23T12:42:00.000-04:002021-06-23T12:42:18.792-04:00Steeplechase Pier, Coney IslandIf "resilient" can mean "being rebuilt again and again," then the Pat Auletta Steeplechase Pier at Coney Island is resilient as advertised (on the sign at its entrance). Its most recent iteration opened Oct. 2, 2013 after Hurricane Sandy had destroyed it the previous year. But the history of this thousand-foot (and now T-shaped) pier goes back to 1904, seven years after Coney Island's famed Jon Sobelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01187212192990576914noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1344369821178467638.post-35827651046469094002021-05-24T09:30:00.006-04:002021-07-04T11:59:37.143-04:00Little IslandAll the talk this past weekend in the local New York City press was about Little Island, a just-opened public park off Hudson River Park on the west side of Manhattan. It's the brainchild and wallet spawn of media mogul Barry Diller, who worked with the Hudson River Park Trust and an assortment of arts honchos to envision, design, and actually build a totally original park over the Sandy-damaged Jon Sobelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01187212192990576914noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1344369821178467638.post-82680125771074925312020-11-01T18:28:00.002-05:002020-11-01T18:28:42.986-05:00Graniteville Swamp Park, Staten IslandAfter viewing the well-kept war memorial at Joseph Manna Park in the Mariner's Harbor section of Staten Island. we crossed Forest Avenue to peer into an inaccessible protected marsh called Graniteville Swamp Park, part of the 45-acre Graniteville Swamp area. Protected by the Harbor Herons Wildlife Refuge – a mysterious entity that covers Prall's Island, Shooter's Island, and some other spaces Jon Sobelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01187212192990576914noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1344369821178467638.post-16801253573353132902020-10-28T19:40:00.004-04:002020-10-28T19:41:30.415-04:00Joseph Manna Park, Staten IslandJoseph Manna Park is a war memorial inside a small curvy triangle less than an acre in size, by the Staten Island Expressway and near the Old Place Creek tidal wetlands at the island's northwest shore. It's named for Seaman First Class Radioman Joseph Manna (1924-1942), an immigrant from the Naples area who died on the Navy destroyer USS Duncan during the Battle of Cape Esperance near GuadalcanalJon Sobelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01187212192990576914noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1344369821178467638.post-26168846840224826852020-10-11T20:15:00.000-04:002020-10-11T20:15:46.871-04:00Old Place Creek, Staten IslandWith hundreds of miles of coastline, New York City has plenty of water-fronting parks. But how many of those can you visit only by boat? We found one this summer. To reach Old Place Creek – really the 70-acre Old Place Creek Tidal Wetlands Area – you have to drive to the northwest corner of Staten Island, find your way to the south-going lane of Gulf Avenue, dawdle past the National Grid Jon Sobelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01187212192990576914noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1344369821178467638.post-10034588665764225472020-09-07T20:03:00.001-04:002021-06-01T09:53:40.418-04:00Hunter's Point South Park and Gantry Plaza State ParkOur three-borough NYC Ferry tour began with a sail from Manhattan to the new Naval Cemetery Landscape in Brooklyn. It continued in Queens at another new park, Hunter's Point South Park, which was, the Parks Department website notes, "until recently an abandoned post-industrial area in Long Island City."
Until, that is, the advent of the NYC Ferry. If that wonderful, rampantly money-losing Jon Sobelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01187212192990576914noreply@blogger.com0