Sunday, June 03, 2007

City Walk #7 - Upper West Side 3: Riverside Park and the Boat Basin

Card no. 32 - photos
This walk takes you through the Upper West Side's neighborhood treasure, Riverside Park.

Begin at 86th Street and Broadway (1 train to 86th Street).
Walk west on 86th Street to Riverside Drive, a tree-lined residential street that begins at West 72nd Street. Turn right on Riverside Drive to West 89th Street and the 1902 Soldiers and Sailors Memorial, a popular play area for children and the end point for the city's annual Memorial Day parade. Follow the path behind the monument into the park itself, turning right up the promenade to enjoy one of the city's loveliest community gardens, at West 91st Street. Head south again with the river on your right, to where a second path descends on the right. Follow this to the 79th Street Boat Basin, a houseboat community. Directly opposite is the Boat Basin Cafe, an informal outdoor restaurant whose barbecue grills and bar draw both singles and families. If you get there before five o'clock, you have a fighting chance to claim a table overlooking the river and enjoy a drink or early dinner before strolling to the south end of the basin and Trump Pier. Jutting several hundred feet out into the Hudson, the pier offers especially beautiful views of the Jersey Palisades and George Washington Bridge. Leaving the pier, turn left back onto the basin path and take the broad stone steps up to Riverside Park once again. Note the bronze statue of Eleanor Roosevelt at the center of the small planted plaza at the corner of 72nd and Riverside. Though the patrician Mrs. Roosevelt never lived on the West Side, many in this historically political neighborhood would argue that her spirit does.

No comments: