Explore New York

Brooklyn Bridge Park is an 85-acre waterfront park on the Brooklyn side of the East River, laid out by Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates on former industrial piers. It runs 1.3 miles from Atlantic Avenue past the Brooklyn Bridge to the Manhattan Bridge, with lawns, playgrounds and sports fields on Piers 1 to 6.

Washington Square Park is a 4-hectare public park in Greenwich Village, Lower Manhattan, run by NYC Parks. The marble Washington Square Arch, designed by Stanford White and completed in 1892, marks its northern entrance, and the central fountain plaza is a gathering place for students, musicians and street performers.

Governors Island is a 70-hectare island in New York Harbor, a short ferry ride from Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn. A US Army post from 1783 to 1966 and later a Coast Guard base, it opened to the public in 2005 and now has lawns, man-made hills with harbour views, historic officers' houses and the forts Fort Jay and Castle Williams.

Little Island is a public park on an artificial island in the Hudson River at Pier 55, off West 13th Street in Manhattan. Designed by Heatherwick Studio and opened in 2021, it rests on 132 concrete pot-shaped columns called tulips and has lawns, planted paths, viewpoints and a 687-seat amphitheatre.

The High Line is a 2.33 km elevated park on a disused freight railway viaduct on Manhattan's West Side, running from Gansevoort Street through Chelsea to 34th Street. It opened in stages from 2009, designed by James Corner Field Operations and Diller Scofidio + Renfro with plantings by Piet Oudolf, and keeps lengths of the old rails among the plants.

Bryant Park is a 3.9-hectare park in Midtown Manhattan between 40th and 42nd Streets, behind the main building of the New York Public Library. Named in 1884 after the poet and journalist William Cullen Bryant, it was rebuilt in the 1930s and restored in 1988–1992, and has a central lawn, tree-lined terraces, movable chairs and a carousel.

Prospect Park is a 213-hectare park in Brooklyn laid out by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux and opened in 1867. Its landscape includes the Long Meadow, a 36-hectare lawn, Brooklyn's only lake, wooded ravines, the Boathouse and the Prospect Park Zoo.

Central Park is an 843-acre (341 ha) landscaped park in the middle of Manhattan, designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux after their Greensward Plan of 1858 and completed in 1876. Its meadows, lakes, woodland paths and bridges, the Ramble, the Reservoir and Bethesda Terrace lie between the Upper West Side and the Upper East Side.