Fort Tyron Park
Riverside Drive to Broadway
New York, NY 10040
https://www.nycgovparks.org/parks/fort-tryon-park
https://www.nycgovparks.org/parks/fort-tryon-park/history
Open: Sunday-Saturday 6:00am-1:00am
My review on TripAdvisor:
I love Fort Tryon Park in Upper Manhattan. It is one of the most beautiful parks in New York City. It is a park of rolling hills, stone paths that hug the hills, interesting garden that are ablaze when in season, shady tree sitting areas and is home to many playgrounds and the Cloisters Museum which is part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It has so much to offer a visitor coming into Manhattan from exploring the woods that line the path to looking at interesting art at the museum. This 67 acre park is one of the interesting and complex in New York City.
A city view of the beauty of the park by the Hudson River
When you enter the park from Inwood by Broadway, you enter through Ann Loftus Park which is named after a local community leader and is one of the popular parks with kids and families in the area. In the summer months, the fountains and water fixtures are going strong and the kids run around them while the parents lie under shade trees talking to one another.
Ann Loftus Playground
When taking the path from Ann Loftus Park and winding up the hills of woods and rock formations is the Hudson River looming in the distance with spectacular views of the Palisades and the large cliffs of Fort Lee, NJ on the other side.
At the top of hill like a crown jewel is the Medieval Galleries of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Cloisters Museum. Filled with all the Met’s collections of Religious and Medieval art set into themes of old churches, stained glass windows, flowered courtyards and vistas of the river, it is the perfect place to wonder around.
The Met-Cloisters Museum
Don’t miss the “Hunt of the Unicorn” tapestries.
The Hunt of the Unicorn Tapestry
The Cloisters:
https://www.metmuseum.org/visit/plan-your-visit/met-cloisters
My review on TripAdvisor:
As you pass the Cloisters and walk further in to the park, there is still so much more to see and do. The Linden Terrace overlooks the Hudson River with its large shade trees over head and its stone benches to sit and just look in the distance or read a book. This was the site of the original Fort Tryon and is the highest location in the park.
Linden Terrace is a nice place to relax and read a book
Further down in the other entrance of the park is Heather Garden, a large path of flowers , bushes and trees with benches lining it. The garden was the Olmstead Brothers when the park was taking shape and is a beautiful place to walk in the Spring and Summer months when the park is in full bloom.
The Heather Garden was recently remodeled to follow the original design by the Olmstead Brothers.
There is even a terrace restaurant in the middle of the park, the New Leaf Cafe (See review on TripAdvisor-Closed in 2018) which sits off to the side of the Corbin Circle on the other side of the park. The food is over-rated and very expensive. The last time I ate there the menu was pretty standard. It is a great to take out of towners who want a view of something. It is not worth the trip. The views are nice and in the summer months it is pretty but the food and service are standard.
The New Leaf Cafe in Fort Tyron Park (Closed in 2018)
My review on TripAdvisor:
The park has so much to offer in all months of the year especially in the Spring and Summer.
History of Fort Tryon Park:
The area was known by the local Lenape Indians as Chquaesgeck and by the Dutch settlers as Lange Bergh (Long Hill). During the Revolutionary War, the Battle of Fort Washington was fought on this site. The park is built on a high formation of Manhattan schist with igneous intrusions and glacial striations from the last Ice Age (Wiki).
John D. Rockefeller Jr. bought up most the land in 1917, which by that point had been old estates, to create Fort Tryon Park. He hired the Olmstead Brothers firm, under the direction of Fredrick Law Olmstead Jr., the son of the designer of Central Park, to design the park and James W. Dawson to create a planting plan. Mr. Rockefeller also bought the collection of Medieval art from sculptor George Gray Barnard and it was the cornerstone of The Cloisters Museum which was built in 1939 (Wiki).
Through the years the park has seen its ups and downs especially in the 1970’s and 80’s with the decline of finances in New York City. There were extensive renovations when finances got better in the late 90’s and parts of the park were fully renovated. The Fort Tyron Park Trust, a non-profit organization was founded in 1998 to help maintain the park (Wiki).
Today it is just an amazing park!
Visiting a Museum: The Unique, Unusual, Obscure and Historical 