Riverside Park

Riverside Park Review

Walking around concrete and skyscrapers all day, you can easily miss the expansive waterfront park just blocks away. Riverside Park—which along with the Riverside Park South extension runs along the Hudson from 58th to 156th streets—dishes out a dose of tranquility. Its original sections, designed by Frederick Law Olmsted Law and Calvert Vaux of Central Park fame and laid out between 1873 and 1888, are outshone by Olmsted's "other" park. But with its waterfront bike and walking paths and lighter crowds, Riverside Park holds its own.

One of the park's loveliest attributes is a half-mile path along the waterfront, a rare spot in Manhattan where you can walk right along the river's edge. Reach it entering the park at West 72nd Street and Riverside Drive (look for the statue of Eleanor Roosevelt) and then heading through an underpass beneath the West Side Highway. Head north along the Hudson River, past the 79th Street Boat Basin, where you can watch a flotilla of houseboats bobbing in the water. Above it, a ramp leads to the Rotunda, home in summer to the Boat Basin Café, an open-air, dog-friendly spot for a burger, a beer, and river views. Leave the riverside path near 92nd Street by taking another underpass and then heading up the path on the right. The 91st Street Garden, planted by community gardeners, explodes with flowers in most seasons. To the south, cresting a hill along Riverside Drive at West 89th Street, stands the Civil War Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument (1902), an imposing 96-foot-high circle of white-marble columns designed by Paul M. Duboy, who also designed the Ansonia Hotel.