The Perfect Central Park Walk
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One of my favorite New York characters to follow on Instagram is @onefunnylisamarie. Anytime she offers a recipe it comes with a warning: “This is how we make it. This is the way we like it.” I’m presenting my favorite Central Park walk with the same kind of disclaimer.
The Park, this New York City miracle, spans 843 acres, and by a certain point in your life, I hope you get to experience them all. But 72nd and Fifth is a great place to start. At least it’s where I always do. It is a great meeting place for Saturday morning strolls or the occasional power walk with friends, and if the line is not too long, it is within a block’s distance from Ralph’s Coffee on 72nd and Madison. Strolling through CP with coffee or a peppermint hot chocolate? Hard to beat.
So I enter there and head straight to the main loop. Now, you can certainly turn right, toward the Boathouse and Alice in Wonderland and then past Cleopatra’s Needle, eventually hitting the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the east entrance to the Reservoir, but I prefer a detour. I suggest heading in on 72nd and Fifth and walking straight instead, right up to Bethesda Fountain. Stop and stare at her. Recite, if you so choose, that gorgeous passage from Angels in America about the miracle of Bethesda and about the Yankee trees behind her; watch people rowing on the lake. And then keep walking, along the west side, past the Central Park Barber under the pergola. Stop and take a picture of Bow Bridge in the distance—it’s one of those vantage points that make Manhattan feel like the Shire, and it’s a picture I took almost every day of 2020 when walks in this park were my sanity and salvation.
You will, on this route, pass the Swedish Cottage and the Shakespeare Garden, and if it is summer you might see people waiting on line for Shakespeare in the Park (the Delacorte will return in triumph in 2025). Join them—it’s one of the great NYC rituals—or keep walking. Eventually around 86th street (look at the lampposts for a sense of where you are) you will hit a crossroads. Ahead of you will be the Reservoir, and slightly to the left, the Bridle Path. I would tell you to take either, but if you are up for more steps, continue on the Bridle Path. There is a moment higher up on the west side with one of my favorite views of the city—where the East Side residences meet the Midtown office buildings in a moment that always makes me think of that line from Gatsby about “the city seen for the first time, in its first wild promise of all the mystery and the beauty in the world.” (In the novel the reference is the view from the Queensboro Bridge, but still, it applies.) In the spring, this route will also allow you to walk under a canopy of cherry blossoms that is always one of my favorite moments of the year.
So continue on the Bridle Path and if you are feeling adventurous, take a slight detour and keep walking up the west side of the Park toward the North Woods. I always find it easier to find that unreal vista of waterfalls and wilderness from the West Side but you can also access it from the East. You will not believe this exists in the middle of Manhattan.
But maybe you don’t have that much time. Or maybe you are getting hungry? The Bridle Path will eventually loop you around the Reservoir back to the East Side where you began. I’d walk it until about 84th Street where you will see the back of the Metropolitan Museum. On the way there at the entrance to the park on 92nd and Fifth you can walk up the stairs to the Reservoir and take a picture of El Dorado’s towers and that gorgeous Central Park West skyline. It’s a wonder.
But back to the Met. I generally exit here, sometimes walk into the museum (use the side entrance, always easier, and you can get your Gossip Girl Met steps picture after if you want one). You want to eat a little something? Walk to Madison and order the Greek wrap or Mykonos salad at Nectar Café (Logan Roy-approved) or maybe get a box of black and white cookies from William Greenberg. You can also walk a few blocks south and make like a T&C editor with a mini panini and Princess cake from Sant Ambroeus. If you already miss Central Park, head back in on Fifth and head south. Because you haven’t seen the Carousel yet, or the Zoo, or Sheep Meadow. And really, you should. And by that time, with all those steps, you’ll have to reward yourself with a fresh turkey club at Viand. You know, the diner across from Barneys.
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