Cheer along in a game of kayak polo or join hundreds of others in free outdoor salsa lessons? Watch the sunset on a floating garden or dine on a historic Coast Guard ship?
Hudson River Park is a place where you can find your mood, a 4-mile strip away from the concrete jungle of Manhattan’s West End.
The 550 acres, created by a 1998 state law, reflect a public-private partnership to create an estuary conservation area and improve access to the Hudson for recreational activities. Where sewage depots, slaughterhouses and decaying factories once stood, more than 24 piers have been rebuilt and redesigned over the past two decades: a man-made beach, free concert halls, boathouses, an old railroad bridge, five dog parks, the Intrepid Battleship Museum and educational facilities, including an aquarium of river creatures whose tanks are fed water from the Hudson River.
This waterfront destination was given one task by law: to restore and maintain 400 acres of New York Harbor to preserve the oysters and other creatures that were once so abundant. This summer, park officials were delighted to see the first sighting of a fiddler crab, a sign of healthier waters.
KNOW BEFORE YOU TRAVEL: THE MOST IMPORTANT THINGS – FOOD, PARKING, TOILETS
The park offers fast, casual, fine dining and historic dining. The park is open daily during the summer from 6 a.m. to 1 p.m., hudsonriverpark.org.
For quick but delicious food, head to Market 57 food court on Pier 57. It offers indoor, outdoor and rooftop seating, a popular sunset spot.
The selection reflects the city’s diverse cuisine and its independent chefs, including Korean and Caribbean dishes, craft beer, gourmet hot dogs, and Mexican and Middle Eastern salads. Good to Go, from the famous James Beard Foundation, presents salads created by TV chefs and well-known cookbook authors.
Grab a bite to eat at Market 57 food court at Pier 57.
On the same pier is City Winery, an upscale full-service restaurant that closes at 10 p.m.
There are a few cozy places to sit on the esplanade and several floating restaurants on the piers, but the most notable is Pier 66’s Frying Pan, a former Coast Guard vessel that is on the National Register of Historic Places. Built in 1929, this “lightship” had a light at the top of its mast and a foghorn, a floating beacon that guided ships along the coast and in bad weather. It was eventually abandoned at an old oyster cannery in the Chesapeake Bay, where it sank and lay underwater for three years before John Krevey, who owned an electrical business, bought and restored it.
Parking at Pier 40 on W. Houston Street costs $26 or more, but there are numerous parking garages on surrounding streets.
Hudson River Park does not have a subway stop. Long Islanders can take the LIRR to Penn Station and walk about 15 minutes to the river. Then head south to see most of the park’s main attractions. For a shorter walk, take the E subway south/downtown at Penn Station and get off at 14th Street. That’s about three blocks from Pier 57’s food court and Pier 55’s Little Island.
As for toilets, don’t worry, there are plenty of them in the park. They are clean and spacious. The toilet on Little Island looks and feels like it could be in a luxury hotel.
“The chain of piers is an absolute gem of a park,” says Laurie Silberfeld of Point Lookout, former general counsel of the park’s trust. “You get a real tactile experience of the environment and the river. You come away richer because you’ve learned something along the way and had a good time at the same time.”
STARS OF THE PARK
Explore the gardens at Pier 46. Photo credit: Hudson River Park
The piers between West 59th Street and Harrison Street in Greenwich Village require at least a weekend to explore. A wide esplanade separates the piers and their activities from the street-side attractions, which consist mainly of lawns, gardens and cafe-like seating under trees. There are plenty of programs and well-known park attractions such as baseball stadiums, pickleball courts, mini golf and a skate park.
If time is short, start with a caffeine shot for the eyes – 132 gigantic concrete “pots,” tulip-shaped structures that rise up to 65 feet above the water at Pier 55, across from 14th Street.
Called Little Island, this $260 million floating garden is home to about 400 species of trees and plants, as well as lawns sprouting from pots. Paths and stairs wind up, down and around, with each pot offering a different view of the city and river. A 700-foot-long amphitheater overlooking New Jersey hosts free concerts and plays, while a grassy hill sets the mood for intimate jazz gatherings.
A pier over, the sands of the Gansevoort Peninsula may still lure Long Islanders spoiled by ocean beaches. Visitors dip their feet in the Hudson River or doze in Adirondack chairs while geese chug by and workers in suits or hardhats stroll just feet away.
For those with children, the playgrounds are imaginative. At Pier 26, near North Moore Street, children frolic in the bellies of two Godzilla-sized sturgeons, then slide down and out.
Children can play on the 4,000-square-foot marine science-themed playground at Pier 26. Photo credit: Ted Doyle
At the end of the long piers, where the honking and hammering of the city falls silent, sitting under groves of trees invites reflection.
Work is still underway on the riverfront, with a film studio under construction at Pier 94 and a giant slide to a sunset deck, fields and water fountains at Pier 97. A working group is discussing profitable ideas for Pier 76, the park’s largest at 250,000 square feet, which was once the city’s tow yard and now serves as a stage for salsa dancing and festivals.
Noreen Doyle, president and CEO of the Hudson River Park Trust, believes the park fulfills the human “need” for green and blue.
FREE ART EDUCATION AND FUN AT SEA
In the most expensive district of the city, you have to prepare for a price shock – for free.
Paddling, rowing, kayaking and outrigger canoeing lessons are free at the boathouses at Piers 26, 40, 66 and 96.
At Pier 96 people go kayaking. Photo credit: Max Guliani
Science classes can be high-tech or live. The fenced-in river grass marks the development of salt marsh habitats. The Wetlab at Pier 40 displays fish, eels, turtles and other creatures in large tanks and pools caught from the Hudson River and released as winter approaches. The tech-equipped Discovery Tank classroom at Pier 57 (sponsored by Google, with offices in the building) invites the curious to design their own plankton. At Pier 26, Big City Fishing offers catch-and-release fishing and fish lessons.
In keeping with the spirit of a city full of museums, quirky artworks are scattered throughout the park, some of which are on loan from the Whitney Museum of American Art across from Gansevoort. Peering through the portholes of a bus-sized green bottle called Private Passage reveals a ship’s cabin with metal furniture and appliances. If you want to sit in the Big Apple, the Pier 46 gardens feature a 3-ton bronze version, whose hollow center is a popular selfie spot.
A WALK THROUGH HISTORY
View of Manhattan from Pier 26. Photo credit: Max Guliani
For centuries, society has devalued this Hudson riverfront while simultaneously exploiting the natural resources of the Hudson River.
In the 19th century, slaughterhouses, meat processing warehouses, and lamp oil and turpentine factories and warehouses were established along the Hudson River in Manhattan.
In modern times, many abandoned buildings fell into disrepair and the neighborhood became home to nightclubs, crime, and prostitution rings. It was also a neighborhood where many members of the LGBTQ+ community hung out.
Then, in the 1990s, the neighborhoods became hip as the city preserved its historic buildings and private and public investment poured in, leading to gentrification, the emergence of haute couture boutiques, restaurants and the High Line Park on old train tracks.
Families can ride hand-carved creatures on the carousel at Pier 62. Photo credit: Hudson River Park
Hudson River Park draws on this history. A restored “Float Transfer Bridge” at Pier 66a, for example, once transported railroad cars from riverboats to the tracks along the waterfront. Hand-carved creatures on the carousel at Pier 62 reflect the animals that once roamed the Hudson River Valley in great numbers, from seahorses to bears.
On a pier that was once home to LGBTQ+ people, Little Island hosts Teen Night events every Friday to welcome LGBTQ+ people, at-risk individuals and other youth.
Michael Wiggins, the floating park’s director of engagement, revels in how Little Island illustrates the park’s holistic theme: “It’s so magical how the whole thing has evolved. It’s a deliberately created home for children, for children living on the fringes of society, for gay teenagers, for pollinators, for birds that need a place to land. It’s a place of joy.”
End the adventure with a view of the sunset
Experience the sunset on the roof of Pier 57. Photo credit: Hudson River Park
The park is characterized by the fact that it offers different perspectives. For example, one notices the skyscrapers of Hudson Yards, which envelop the famous “Vessel”, a 16-story honeycomb structure.
However, visitors say that the city is at its most beautiful at sunset in Hudson River Park.
From several vantage points – the roof of Pier 57, the Little Island amphitheater, wide stretches of the Esplanade – people gaze in silence at colorful clouds and the orange orb behind New Jersey’s skyscrapers. Manhattan’s glass and steel towers glow yellow, orange, blue and other colors as they reflect the fading natural light and then the artificial lighting of the night.
College student Nathan Heo was tired after flying from Georgia for a visit and anxious about being in a crowded city. But as he watched darkness fall in the park, the tranquility of the river gave him a sense of suburban safety.
“When you come to a place like this, you feel isolated from the rest of the city,” says Heo. “It gives you energy that sleep can’t give you.”
