Randalls Island Park

20 Randalls Island Park
Randalls Island Park has sustained a long and colorful history, leading to the comprehensive sports and recreational facility which today welcomes New Yorkers and other visitors to its shores. The Island’s 480 acres once comprised two separate island... more
Randalls Island Park has sustained a long and colorful history, leading to the comprehensive sports and recreational facility which today welcomes New Yorkers and other visitors to its shores. The Island’s 480 acres once comprised two separate islands, Randalls and Wards, which for hundreds of years were used not as a public park but as a location for a range of public facilities including a boys’ home, a hospital, and a home for civil war veterans. The islands were first designated for recreational use by Robert Moses, and the park was opened in 1936 by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, along with the new Triborough Bridge. In subsequent years, the Little Hell Gate Channel and its adjacent wetlands were filled by debris from construction projects in Manhattan, joining the acreage into a single island. Generations of New Yorkers enjoyed the park, but by the 1980s it had fallen into serious disrepair. In 1992, the Randall’s Island Park Alliance (RIPA) (formerly the Randall's Island Sports Foundation) was established to revive the park, and began working alongside the City of New York and the Department of Parks & Recreation to develop sports and recreational facilities, maint... more

Randalls Island Park has sustained a long and colorful history, leading to the comprehensive sports and recreational facility which today welcomes New Yorkers and other visitors to its shores. The Island’s 480 acres once comprised two separate islands, Randalls and Wards, which for hundreds of years were used not as a public park but as a location for a range of public facilities including a boys’ home, a hospital, and a home for civil war veterans. The islands were first designated for recreational use by Robert Moses, and the park was opened in 1936 by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, along with the new Triborough Bridge. In subsequent years, the Little Hell Gate Channel and its adjacent wetlands were filled by debris from construction projects in Manhattan, joining the acreage into a single island. Generations of New Yorkers enjoyed the park, but by the 1980s it had fallen into serious disrepair.

In 1992, the Randall’s Island Park Alliance (RIPA) (formerly the Randall's Island Sports Foundation) was established to revive the park, and began working alongside the City of New York and the Department of Parks & Recreation to develop sports and recreational facilities, maintain the Park and restore its natural environment. In 1999, RIPA, the City and the local community worked together to generate a Management, Restoration & Development Plan for the Park, and in the years since this plan has been largely realized. The transformation began in 2005 with Icahn Stadium, an IAAF-certified track & field facility, which was followed by a renovated golf center, nine acres of restored wetlands, a 20-court tennis center, more than 60 playing fields and miles of waterfront bike and pedestrian pathways. Many of these facilities have utilized parkland reclaimed from institutional use and/or restored from a degraded, inaccessible state. RIPA works to coordinate local stewardship of the refurbished Park through volunteer efforts, and hosts free summer and year-round sports and environmental programs to make the most of the new facilities, restored natural areas, waterfront pathways and green, open fields.

Randall’s Island Park has transformed over the past decade into a world-class sporting destination with outstanding facilities. Icahn Stadium, a world-class track & field facility, is the only IAAF-certified stadium in North America, capable of hosting local, regional and national events. The Stadium offers a full standard 400-meter Mondo running track flanked by 5,000 covered spectator seats overlooking the East River. The Sportime Tennis Center, which is the largest and finest tennis facility to open in New York City in the past 30 years, features 20 state-of-the-art courts, and provides a venue for New Yorkers to watch, train, play and compete. Randall’s Island Park is also home to the Randall’s Island Golf Center, which has been recently renovated and has a large grass tee driving range, two miniature golf courses, batting cages, beer garden and WiFi lounge.

In addition to sporting facilities, the Island is also home to a sprawling event site that, along with Icahn Stadium, hosts a number of special events every year. Located between Icahn Stadium and the Harlem River, the event site has hosted notable concerts, art fairs, and cultural festivals, including the Governor’s Ball, the Electric Zoo Festival, and the upcoming Frieze Art Fair.

The new Randall’s Island brings back to New York City the glory of a park that once hosted a dream roster of national greats including Duke Ellington, Jesse Owens, Pelé and Jimi Hendrix.


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Tribeca Description

Randalls Island Park is located in the Tribeca neighborhood of Manhattan. TriBeCa, or the Triangle Below Canal Street, became a popular neighborhood for artists and others seeking relief from the rising prices in SoHo in the late 1980s. In some ways similar to the SoHo of decades past for its conversion of gritty old industrial warehouses into beautiful loft spaces, the real estate boom of the later 1990s transformed forever the small-town feeling of TriBeCa. No longer is it tough to find good food, grocery stores or newsstands. Chic boutiques now compete with high-end restaurants and bars, while the influx of upper-income families have led to the quick disappearance of the downright cheap apartment bargains of years past. Forbes magazine recently ranked the 10013 zip code in TriBeCa as the 12th most expensive zip code in the United States. Anonymous high-rises are sprouting up next to the historic older buildings, whose cast-iron façades and gleaming picture windows bespeak a New York of decades past. TriBeCa is a neighborhood where luxury apartments can be found adjacent to city government offices, where the quiet of cobblestone streets contrasts with the heavily trafficked truck routes to the Holland Tunnel, so one should expect the unexpected. In short, expect a microcosm of New York. Recently the neighborhood profile has been raised tremendously by the new TriBeCa Film Festival. Founded by Robert De Niro and Jane Rosenthal in 2002, this New York attraction was created to celebrate the city as a major filmmaking center and to contribute to the long-term recovery of lower Manhattan. In a remarkably short period of time the TriBeCa Film Festival has become known as one of the leading annual film festivals in the world. Other famous film companies are in the neighborhood as well, most notably Miramax Films Studios on Greenwich Street. In the 19th and 20th centuries TriBeCa was known as a center of the textile and cotton trade, but today in its stead there are a number of modern institutions and important landmarks in the neighborhood. The Holland Tunnel connecting New York to New Jersey has its entrances and exits in the northwest corner of TriBeCa. Washington Market Park, bordering Greenwich, Chambers, and West Streets, is a 1.6-acre park that is extremely popular with children for its large playground. While in terms of educational institutions, Stuyvesant High School, one of New York City's prized specialized science high schools, as well as PS234, an elementary school considered one of the best public schools in the New York metropolitan area, are located in TriBeCa. Brunch, lunch and dinner activities in TriBeCa are highly regarded, not just due to the excellent (and usually expensive) cuisine options, but also in regard to the relative tranquil atmosphere of the neighborhood. Bubby's Restaurant on Varick Street remains popular among the film crowd and is known to be a family friendly restaurant. The Odeon on West Broadway provides the most beloved bistro setting and French comfort food in the neighborhood. And for more refined tastes, Robert De Niro has ownership in not one but two well-known local restaurants here. The TriBeCa Grill, located between Franklin and Greenwich Streets in the first two floors of the TriBeCa Film Center Building, offers classic American cuisine in a converted industrial warehouse setting, and Nobu, a favorite haunt of many New York celebrities, which serves innovative "new style Japanese cooking" to those who are willing to handle the hefty prices on the menu. In addition, the numerous David Bouley properties are always a favorite. Staying in TriBeCa during a stay in Manhattan can offer visitors a welcome escape from the hectic, bustling streets of the neighborhoods in and near Midtown. An obvious choice would be the Tribeca Grand Hotel which plays host to the TriBeCa Film Festival and lies in close proximity to Little Italy, Chinatown, Hudson Square nightclubs, Greenwich Village, New York University, and Wall Street. The Greenwich Hotel, located on the Western edge of the neighborhood right next to the TriBeCa Grill, offers 13 luxury suites and 75 unique rooms. The Cosmopolitan Hotel in southern TriBeCa is geared to the needs of out-of-town visitors and has affordable rooms, a convenient location, and newly refurbished in-house restaurant, the Cosmopolitan Café.

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Info

20 Randalls Island Park
New York, NY 10035

Editorial Rating

Admission And Tickets

Free

Nearby Subway

  • to 125th Street
  • Free transfer to M35 bus, which runs to the Island from the NW corner of 125th Street and Lexington Ave

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