Hudson River Park is where you go in NYC for recreation, relaxing, events, culture, dining, panoramic views and more. On more than a dozen public piers, not to mention miles of pathways and landscapes, you’ll discover a park that offers more than you may imagine—a place that surprises and delights visitors with a diverse and eclectic range of activities and experiences that stimulate the senses and allow spirits to soar.
Hudson River Park is also a work in progress. Excitingly, there is more public park space on its way to you. Beyond design and construction, we have also been adapting to the current COVID-19 world by reimagining beloved public and educational programs so that both new and longstanding audiences can participate in them safely and remotely. We are also still conducting scientific research, including environmental DNA sampling in the 400-acre River Sanctuary that surrounds the Park’s many piers.
Find out what we have to inspire you…
Under Construction
Chelsea Waterside Park
Construction has begun on Phase II improvements at Chelsea Waterside Park. The new design includes a permanent picnic area, a new public restroom facility, an expanded and refreshed synthetic turf field, a small concession stand and an expanded dog run. Learn more about the coming improvements to Chelsea Waterside Park, and visit the dog run page to read about its new features.
Gansevoort Peninsula
Construction has begun on the Gansevoort Peninsula, a 5.5-acre site that will be transformed into a green oasis for New Yorkers as part of the continued build-out of Hudson River Park. Learn more about the design process.
Pier 57
Historic Pier 57 will have a phased opening. The public rooftop, with incredible views of Little Island and New York Harbor, is now open and next Spring, the Park’s River Project will begin inviting students to experience a high-tech classroom and gallery of interactive science exhibits. The James Beard-backed food hall will also be welcoming Park visitors in Spring 2023.
City Winery at Pier 57 is now open on the ground floor. This popular performance venue includes a public restaurant, tasting room and its signature wine production facility — all overlooking the river and lower Manhattan.
Pier 97
As part of the design process, !melk and the Trust met with the community in November and December 2018 to listen to individuals’ ideas about the design program—i.e., what kinds of uses and spaces are desired. !melk used this information to start developing the concept design for the area and met with the community again in November 2019 to present the very well-received design concept. To read more, please click here.
Now Open!
Little Island
The dramatic structure rising from the park waters just south of 14 Street is a new Hudson River Park pier known as Little Island. Now open, Little Island is conceived and built in partnership with the Diller-Von Furstenberg Family Foundation and Hudson River Park Trust. Learn more about the origins of this “floating island”.
Pier 76
Hudson River Park’s Pier 76 opened to the public in June 2021. Read more about our newest pier’s storied history.
New Public Art: Day’s End by David Hammons
On the south edge of the Gansevoort Peninsula, the Whitney Museum of American Art is constructing a permanent, site-specific public art project by David Hammons (b. 1943) that has been donated to the Park following its completion in Spring 2021.
Day’s End derives its inspiration and name from an artwork by Gordon Matta-Clarke created in 1975. At that time, Matta-Clarke began carving into an abandoned pier shed once located at Pier 52, turning it into a living sculpture that celebrated water and light. David Hammons’ Day’s End will serve as a “ghost monument” to Gordon Matta-Clark’s earlier work, alluding to the changing history of New York’s waterfront with an open, skeletal structure that precisely follows the outline, dimensions and location of the original structure on Pier 52. As one of the largest public art installations in New York City, Day’s End is publicly accessible and offers an extraordinary place to experience the waterfront.
Sustainability
Park Over Plastic Toolkit
To mark the third anniversary of Park Over Plastic, the Park announced a new resource to our community. We developed the Park Over Plastic Toolkit to share actionable tools that help address our plastic pollution problem. It is designed to support parks, businesses, organizations and other groups that are looking to expand efforts to reduce plastic waste. We invite you to use the resources available in this Toolkit to best serve the needs of your community and hope that it inspires others to reduce their plastic footprint and advocate for greener alternatives that are accessible to all.
Community Compost Dashboard
Hudson River Park launched the HRPK Community Compost Tracker to share data from organic food waste collected at our 10 drop-off locations. Park users, students and compost enthusiasts alike can follow and explore the amount of community compost collected by neighborhood, drop off location, month and year through this interactive tool. All data is downloadable to invite further program analysis in and out of the classroom. Check out the success of the HRPK Community Compost program and learn how to contribute your food scraps to the Park.
Research
Tribeca Habitat Enhancement Project
The Park completed the installation of its largest submerged aquatic habitat enhancement to date between Pier 34 and Pier 26. The Project added over 11 million oysters to Hudson River Park’s 400-acre Estuarine Sanctuary through varied enhancement features including reef balls and gabions. Although most of the enhancements will be below the River’s surface, check out the Park’s Pier 32 pile field to see textured concrete piles that provide vertical habitat from the River’s bottom to the spray zone for encrusting organisms like oysters, mussels and barnacles. Collectively, these enhancements help increase the Sanctuary’s oyster population, diversify river habitat and create a corridor to support local fish populations. The Park is grateful for our scientific partners at NYS Department of Environmental Conservation and our Technical Advisory Council for helping to ensure the project offers benefits to our Estuarine Sanctuary and science communities alike.
River Conditions Dashboard
Our River Project team collaborated with experts to develop an interactive dashboard that makes the Park’s water quality and weather data accessible to broader audiences. Click through the dashboard’s charts and stories to learn about the physical and environmental factors affecting our local waters. The dashboard also includes a new model to estimate the presence of bacteria, visualizing the impact that NYC’s combined sewer system has on our local waterways. Thanks to our partners including Cantina, a design firm that led the project pro-bono, and Wade McGillis at Columbia University for helping to make Park data more accessible.