Riverside Park

Listen first. Under the leaves there is a low, steady hum — traffic on the parkway, half hidden below the slope. Above it come other sounds. A dog collar jingles. A runner breathes hard as she passes. Somewhere a child is laughing on a swing. Then the wind turns, and you smell the river. Cool, a little metallic, faintly of salt. This is Riverside Park, a long green ribbon on the western edge of Manhattan. Here the city stops and the Hudson begins.

The park is long and narrow. It runs north from around 72nd Street along the Upper West Side, for several kilometres up toward Washington Heights. In most places it is only a few blocks wide. That shape is the key to the place. Central Park sits in the middle of Manhattan like a large rectangle. Riverside follows a line instead. It follows the river, and it follows the steep bluff that drops toward the water.

That bluff gave the designers their challenge. In the late nineteenth century, the city asked Frederick Law Olmsted to shape this land. Olmsted was the landscape architect who, with Calvert Vaux, created Central Park. Here he worked with the slope, not against it. He planned a curving drive along the top, terraces, and trees that frame views of the water. Today the curves of Riverside Drive still follow that idea. Look up at the grand apartment houses on the Drive. Many of them were built to face this view.

Now for the first surprise. For decades, this was not a gentle place at all. A freight railroad ran along the shoreline below the bluff. Locomotives passed through smoke and noise, and the waterfront was industrial and dirty. Wealthy residents lived above it, but the river edge belonged to the trains. Olmsted's original park stayed on the high ground. The lower level, where you may walk today, came later.

That change came in the 1930s, under Robert Moses. Moses was the powerful official who reshaped much of New York's roads and parks. His project covered the railroad tracks with a deck and built the Henry Hudson Parkway along the water. New fill land extended the park outward into the river. Ball fields, promenades, and playgrounds appeared on top. The trains did not disappear. They simply went underground. In places, the tracks still run in a tunnel beneath your feet, under the grass and the paths.

That tunnel has its own later story. After freight traffic faded, the dark space became a shelter for people with nowhere else to live. Graffiti artists painted its walls, and the long passage became known to many as the Freedom Tunnel. Later, passenger trains returned to the line. It is a strange thought. Families picnic on top, while beneath them lies one of the city's quieter hidden histories.

Near the southern end, at 72nd Street, you can meet Eleanor Roosevelt. A bronze statue of the former First Lady stands at the park entrance there. She leans on a rock, thoughtful, chin resting on her hand. It is a quiet, human pose, not a heroic one. Many visitors walk past without noticing who she is. Stop for a moment. The statue sits among plantings, and it marks the place where the Drive and the park begin together.

A little to the north, the paths lead down toward the 79th Street Boat Basin. This is one of the few places in Manhattan where people live on boats. Houseboats and sailboats rock gently in the marina. Above them stands the Rotunda, a circular stone structure from the Moses era, with arches and a fountain at its centre. Traffic circles overhead while you stand inside the quiet stone ring. It feels like a small piazza tucked under a highway.

At 89th Street, the slope rises to the Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument. It is a tall, round marble temple, ringed with columns. It was dedicated in 1902 to honour Union soldiers and sailors of the American Civil War. From its terrace, the river opens wide below you. Across the water, the cliffs of New Jersey, called the Palisades, form a long, dark wall. On a clear evening, the sunset sits right behind them.

Keep walking north and you find more memorials. At 93rd Street, Joan of Arc rides in bronze, sword raised, on a high stone base. At 100th Street, a broad monument honours the city's firefighters. And near 91st Street, a community garden fills with flowers in the warm months. Volunteers tend it. Film fans may know it too. The closing scene of the 1998 romantic comedy You've Got Mail was filmed in this garden.

Further north, near 122nd Street, the park reaches Grant's Tomb. This is the resting place of Ulysses Grant, the Civil War general who became president. The great granite mausoleum is one of the largest in North America. But here is the second surprise. Just north of it, behind a small iron fence, stands a tiny urn and a modest grave. It is known as the Amiable Child monument. It marks the grave of a young boy who died in the late eighteenth century, when this land was still private countryside. The grave remains, a gentle reminder of the farms that once covered this hill.

Today, the park belongs to everyday New York. Dogs race in the dog runs. Kids climb in playgrounds named for local figures. Cyclists and runners use the riverside greenway, a path that follows much of the western shore of Manhattan. In the morning you may hear basketballs on the courts, and in summer, music drifting from small gatherings. A nonprofit conservancy works with the city to care for the trees, gardens, and paths. Much of the work is done by volunteers.

So pause here for a moment. Look west, past the trees, toward the moving water. The Hudson carries boats, light, and weather down toward the harbour. Behind you, the city keeps its pace. As you walk on, notice the stone walls along the paths, the old lamp posts, the way the ground steps down toward the river. Each level is a layer of the city's choices — a bluff, a railroad, a park on top. And all of it is here for you to simply walk through, under the open sky.