Mariners Marsh Park

Head 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? wilderness? Or something in between? To your left: Mariners Marsh Park. To your right, the even more mysterious Arlington Marsh Park. Both fenced off, closed down, verboten since 2003. But beckoning.

What a pretty and welcoming sign! you may rightly declare. But the entrance pictured above, along residential Holland Ave., is nothing but a tease, drawing you in toward a tall fence with a gate blocked by a heavy metal rail pounded into the ground.

The gate swings open enough for a skinny explorer like yours truly to slip through, but not everyone in our party was game for the challenge. I'm talking about myself, mostly. Worried about someone coming along and padlocking the gate while we were inside.

A compromised fence along Richmond Terrace was more friendly. We slipped in where others, clearly, had before. In fact, although Mariners Marsh Park has been closed for some time – if it was even ever officially open – its accessibility seems to be something of an open secret. A year ago, for example, Caitlin van Dusen of City Lore explored the park, although she documented areas we didn't get to so I'm guessing she entered elsewhere.

We did, however, find a marked trail.

Fall colors and glistening marshlands made for an evocative experience, even if City Lore's description of the park as "the eeriest place in New York City" might be a slight exaggeration.

The builders of the green trail had laid out real infrastructure, including this plank walkway over some swampy ground.

The trail disgorges you into an open grassy field, resuming for a short distance on the other side before petering out.

You will find relics of the area's industrial past here. This hunk of concrete, for example.

And this rocky road:

As for these hexagonal paving stones, your guess is as good as mine:

There's more of Mariner's Marsh Park to explore, but we didn't want to push our luck. Alltrails, for example, seems to think the park is open, showing what it calls the Mariners March Loop Trail in an official-looking maplike manner. However the "green trail" we found is not marked on this map.

As for Arlington Marsh Park, it was sealed tight as a drum, at least along the stretch of Richmond Terrace we scanned. Perhaps on a more intrepid day, or in a beckoning future time of more advanced park development, Arlington shall reveal its secrets to us.

A Master Plan already exists for the transformation of these parks. The city has owned them since 1974, and transferred them to the Dept. of Parks and Recreation in 1993. In 2012 they were damaged by Sandy, and they remain at risk for flooding.

But with luck and determination, we'll be back. In the meantime, we'll keep exploring the countless parks of the five crazy boroughs of New York City.