Hudson River Park

Hudson River Park

The last great achievement of the valuable, if much derided, scrub-New-York-till-it's-safe-all-over Rudy Giuliani era, Hudson River Park is the evolving result of the still-continuing effort by the city to revitalize and rehabilitate what was once the city's embarrassing, fetid, decrepit coastline into a source of civic pride and target of corporate enthusiasms. The park runs along the length of the Hudson River, offering a variety of diversions for New York's ever-burgeoning yuppie population. The city's best bike and running paths are here, as are some of the best playgrounds, basketball courts, and baseball and softball fields. An intermittent but spectacular granite promenade lines the water like a boardwalk, and thirteen rebuilt piers stretch as far as a thousand feet into the river, each a small, park-like island. In the summertime, many of these piers hosts movie nights, parties, fashion shows, and any other variety of event that might plausibly be mounted in the crisp, invigorating waterside setting.