Central Park
Three hundred and forty hectares drawn by hand in the middle of Manhattan.
Duration
1 hr 30 min – 4 hrs
Best time
Early morning
Open
Every day
Entry price
Free
The park was designed by Olmsted and Vaux from 1858, and everything in it is artificial: the hills, the lakes, the moved boulders, the four transverse roads sunk so that traffic never cuts the walk. An entire village had to be cleared, Seneca Village, home to free Black landowners.
Three hundred and forty hectares, forty million visits a year. The Ramble is deliberately maze-like, the Mall is the only straight line in the plan, and the reservoir track runs two and a half kilometres round.
Getting there
Many stations border it: 59th Street-Columbus Circle to the south-west, 5th Avenue-59th to the south-east, 86th Street on both sides.
Rules on site
The carriages and pedicabs at the south entrance quote a price per person or per stretch of time and then charge far more: agree the total before getting in. The park is vast: find your exit on the map before going in.
Other places in New York
Staten Island FerryA twenty-five-minute crossing that passes the Statue of Liberty.
- High LineA disused elevated railway turned into a planted walkway, two kilometres long.
- Brooklyn BridgeOne point eight kilometres of 1883 steel cable, crossed on foot along the upper deck.
Metropolitan Museum of ArtTwo million works, and a whole Egyptian temple rebuilt inside.