Photo of the Day: Late Summer, Riverside Park, NYC

Stretching four miles from 72^nd Street to 158^th Street, Riverside Park is a welcome oasis from the worst of New York’s heat and humidity. But I have to admit that, when I first encountered it more than four decades ago, much of its verdant loveliness was lost on me.

What I felt, when I took a jogging course called “Fitness and You” as a Columbia University undergrad freshman, was misery.

It was the third class, when we ran a 2½-mile loop in the park, that nearly did me in. More specifically, it was the hills leading from Riverside Drive to the Hudson River shoreline below.

It didn’t help to hear our instructor scream “Charge up that hill!” to me and a couple of other laggards.

So three weeks ago, when I found myself back on Morningside Heights to meet school friends, I basked in the sun and breathed in the fresh air of the park. But I was far more inclined to join the couple on the bench in this photo I took than the fellow maintaining his conditioning.

Photo of the Day: Riverside Park, NYC, Mid-November

This past weekend, before having lunch with a college friend where we first met in the late 1970s—Morningside Heights, the home of Columbia University—I also took a walk to other sites in the neighborhood, including Riverside Park.

As a college freshman taking a jogging course to fulfill my phys ed requirements, I came to realize, on many an exhausting run, the size—and hilliness!—of this vast tract, though I was in no condition to appreciate its beauty. 

But I was on Sunday, with many of the autumn leaves still clinging to the trees and the rest forming a multi-colored natural carpet in this officially designated scenic landmark in New York—one of only eight in the city.

Photo of the Day: Slow Turn Into Fall, Riverside Park, NYC

“October’s half over

and the leaves have not begun

to surrender.”— Poet and nonfiction writer Maureen Ryan Griffin, “Symphony in E Minor: On Wanting the Leaves Off All the Trees,” in Ten Thousand Cicadas Can’t Be Wrong (2014)

I took the attached photo at almost the exact time as now two years ago in Riverside Park. Even now more than then, autumn was slow to come this year, and I’m afraid it won’t stick around for long.

Photo of the Day: Hilltop, Riverside Park, NYC

I took this photo about a month and a half ago, when I spent a good part of an afternoon in the southern end of Riverside Park, up to about 97^th Street. I especially enjoyed the vantage point provided by this particular outcropping of rocks.

Photo of the Day: Where Wheels and Woods Combine—Riverside Park, NYC

Well, okay, not so much “woods” as “trees,” but I couldn’t resist the alliteration. In any case, earlier this week, while in Riverside Park, I was struck by the angles that the roads made against all the greenery, and so I snapped this photo, along with this one posted on Monday.

Photo of the Day: Season’s Turning, Riverside Park, NYC

This afternoon, on my day off, I strolled around and took pictures in Riverside Park in Manhattan. Thiry-eight years ago, in my freshman year at Columbia University, taking a jogging class that called for circuits loops up and down from Riverside Drive toward the Hudson River, I had grown somewhat familiar with the area of the park around 116^th Street—but today I went somewhat south of that, from 79^th to 99^th Streets.

Autumn is not at its height yet, but I was able to find a few spots where the colors of fall are beginning to appear, like here.

Photo of the Day: Garden, Riverside Park, NYC

A month ago, while around Columbia University one Saturday afternoon, I took this photo of a small garden at Riverside Park in Manhattan.