New York City's Parks Ranked: Worst to Best

You have to find your green space in New York, otherwise the rivers of concrete can get to you. The paucity of parks scares many would-be residents away altogether. Because we have such little grassy sprawl, so few tree-lined heaths, we are forced to share our little parks with our fellow New Yorkers. And in that necessary communion, we find a little leafy magic amid all the glass and steel.

5. McCarren 

McCarren Park is where I feel most insecure. 

Every perfect, toned body on display there reminds me of my own shortcomings, my unending failure to master my muscles. I call it “Influencer Park” because it's in trendy Williamsburg and I’ve never seen so many stunningly beautiful people writhing around on yoga mats atop the afternoon’s sunlit AstroTurf. There is a large AstroTurf sports field, enclosed by a running track. Across the street is a large grassy field, where last summer there were daily gatherings for the Black Lives Matter movement. The racial inequities their vigils highlighted are a reminder of things we should never forget.

A billboard near McCarren Park, Williamsburg

McCarren is usually packed, with multiple soccer games happening on the AstroTurf field, dozens of women doing yoga around it, and handfuls of private training classes — from boxing to breakdance. It is Williamsburg’s only real "green" space, it’s like in those African savannah nature documentaries when all the animals have to drink at the same tiny watering hole in the dry season. 

Even though I lived in Williamsburg, I never felt like I belonged in Williamsburg. I was not one of the beautiful young Instagram models who had moved in with a ridiculous whimpering Poodle-like dog. I was not one of the quiet, smouldering Black residents, who knelt with protesting fists aloft and sang and cried with the most profound pain last summer. I was just some guy passing through. It was one of the few places in my beloved New York City where I felt like a stranger. Not unwelcome, just unnecessary. I would play tennis alone — hitting against a wall to myself — before scurrying away on my bike. Maybe some I’ll be comfortable enough in my skin to come back and claim my piece of that fashionable AstroTurf.

4. Central Park

I’ve never lived in Manhattan, so Central Park has always felt performative. It’s beautiful, it’s big, it’s the stuff of films and dreams. You seen it. You probably have your own impression of it. It’s for tourists and New York’s wealthy (ie. Columbia/NYU students). It’s for being seen. It’s for going on dates. I think it’s the kind of park you go to with intention; it’s a destination rather than a state of mind. I don’t think you can just turn up at Central Park. It’s not like your grandma’s kitchen or your best friend’s TV room. It’s a place to get dressed up to go to. It’s the best seat from which to view the symphony of Manhattan’s surrounding skyscrapers. My memories of Central Park are of friends’ lavish picnic brunches and meeting distinguished old professors for dignified walks.

It’s always been an hour away by train — a world away in my imagination. My physical distance from Central Park has probably informed my emotional distance from Central Park. 

3. Sternberg

Sternberg Park is a curious creature. You wouldn’t have heard of it unless you lived right by it. It’s an AstroTurf field (with a baseball diamond at either corner), flanked by a playground, a small dog park, and basketball courts. It’s your typical Brooklyn public “park”, with a smattering of trees, a sprinkling of artificial grass, and spadefuls of concrete. I used to live across the street from Steinberg Park and I grew to love it. 

In the early mornings, you see old Chinese men and women doing Tai-Chi on the concrete basketball courts. They are smiling and laughing - as relaxed as I’ve ever seen them. Their numbers would serve as a proxy indication of Covid’s terrible hold on the city; as soon as cases go down they are out in force, caressing the cool morning air with pleasant sweeping strokes of wrinkled hands.

On a weeknight, Sternberg plays host of a mix of different residents. Young men playing soccer, young couples on their evening stroll, and even 30-year old Indian fellows teaching themselves how to ride a bike. Like New York taught me how to be a grown up, Sternberg park is where I taught myself to ride an old hand-me-down cycle that my Uncle had gifted me in summer 2020. Being able to glide through New York atop my trusty bike - especially during the 1st Covid wave when we were scared of taking the subway - was a profound gift. It took me 2 sessions of nervously lumbering around Sternberg park on my bike to get the hang of things. Some kids looked at me in bewilderment, some older Latino men laughed. They were well within their rights, because I looked ridiculous. But I taught myself, I learned. Thank you, Steinberg Park.

A summer Saturday at Sternberg Park is a thing to behold. South Williamsburg has a big Puerto Rican community, and the whole neighbourhood comes out to play softball. While young men play on the AstroTurf, older men and women pull up all kinds of lawn furniture on the other side of the wire fence. They pour themselves drinks and put on Latin music. Cold beers cut through the warm air. There is dancing. There is joy. This is their neighbourhood and they let themselves feel the collective freedom only a lazy Saturday can invoke.

And Sunday! Sunday is for Football. American Football. On Sunday morning, dozens of big cars pull up to Steinberg Park. A grill is fired up outside that same wire fence where people Salsa’d yesterday evening. Now the African American residents are out in force. Men are hurling themselves over and across and around and above and along the AstroTurf field as they run to catch and tackle and share the elusive oblong football. There are snarls of conflict, which referees’ whistles quickly quieten. There are people cheering from the sidelines and hip hop blaring from the parked cars. So much human energy.

And yet all that human energy, that resilient spirit that stood up to Covid, was squandered and doused for 18 months as the local city council closed down Steinberg park for renovations starting in Fall 2020. 

It was the time we needed Steinberg park the most — this wonderful open public space that delivered us from the monotony of lockdown. All they were doing, the city said, was replacing the AstroTurf but they closed the park down for almost 2 years. For the first year, all they did was tear away the existing AstroTurf as a van would sit idle on the exposed concrete. No work. No men on site. Just the soul ripped out of a desperate community, by some disinterested city planners somewhere. I looked into it and the simple re-laying of AstroTurf (something that should have taken 2 weeks), took almost 4 years and $3 million from planning to execution. I moved out of my Sternberg-facing apartment before the “renovation” was complete. I went back to see it recently, but it’s someone else’s park now. I wish it well. I was dumped. I bounced. 

2. Transmitter Park

Go to Transmitter Park in Greenpoint on a balmy summer night. Get a delicious pizza from Pauly Gee’s next door, get a couple cold drinks, and sit on the grass to take in one of the best Manhattan skyline views around. That is all you need to be happy.

Transmitter park is small, but there’s always a little space for you. During the day, people do yoga classes right by the water. In the evening, once the skyline is lit up, people just sit on the benches and gaze in wonder at the city’s dazzling beauty. All the lights, all the colours - they light up the night sky and brighten even the most troubled mind, massage the most tired shoulders. Transmitter Park and Pauly Gee’s pizza on a summer night: a NYC must-do.

1. Prospect Park

Prospect Park is Brooklyn. Prospect Park is my home. It is a “living” park, as much a part of my home as my living room. In a city where space and greenery are at such a premium, it is boldly shared, defiantly green and it belongs to all of us.

On a Sunday, the park is packed with families from local communities. Latino folks are having barbecues, Black folks are having birthday parties. It is the only place I’ve seen in New York City where people of all races, genders, ages, and incomes seem to mingle and jingle in carefree harmony. It is a colorful, vibrant, peaceful celebration of Brooklyn: you can see the Manhattan skyscrapers peering at you over the trees in the distance, but they are far away. You feel the distance between you and the glass towers and that distance gives you levity and air and breathing room. You can breathe in prospect park — really breathe. There are always three different jazz quartets and a thirty different reggaetón beats and they never clash. Where one music’s territory ends, another’s begins. A truce through the trees.

I live in the park through all seasons. It is where you can really experience New York’s different seasons. In the winter, we are all huddled up. It gives you the space you need to walk around so you can keep warm. In the spring, it is lush and glistens after the rain and the cycle track - my beloved cycle track - is crisp and enticing. In the Fall, the colors of the trees invoke such emotion, such passion on all of us. So often I see the same blood-red canopy being photographed on one side by a family of Orthodox Jews and on the other by East Asian tourists. 

No matter how many of us squeeze into the park, it seems to expand to fit us all. There is always enough Prospect Park to go around. And this is never more apparent than in summer. Summer in prospect park is a dream that I try to escape to whenever I close my eyes. Long evenings, endless laughter, families and babies and dogs and musicians to keep us all engrossed in our collective joy. 

Summer is when I feel most connected to the trees in Prospect Park. The great big trees are my friends and I love to see them standing healthy and strong and proud under the summer sun. Last summer I would listen to Lord of the Rings on audiobook as I walked around the Park every weeknight at dusk and through the purple twilight I would imagine the trees were Ents. They are so big, so powerful, so green, and their leaves are an oasis of oxygen in an urban cacophony. I love how the orange lamplights somehow make the night’s sky’s purple even more purple. 

You can go to Prospect Park wearing whatever you want. You can do there to cry, to dance, to think things through. Prospect Park is Brooklyn’s back yard. Have a seat.