Top ActivitiesYou can also take free swimming lessons at Lasker Pool, go boating on the Lake, or attend popular film and theater events like Shakespeare in the Park and the Central Park Film Festival.
The circumference of Central Park is about 6 miles. The length of the Park (north-south) is about two and a half miles. It is not possible to walk in a perfectly straight line but if one were to walk at a comfortable 3 miles per hour, one could go from one end to the other in about an hour or a little more.
Central Park is—as a whole, of course—one of New York City's most beautiful free things to explore, but we'd like to specifically highlight all the statues there are to see.
First off, it's never a good idea to go through Central Park at night. While Central Park is an idyllic tourist attraction during the day, it is technically supposed to be closed late at night and in the early hours of the morning. The vast majority of cases of crime and violence in the park occur at night.
Admission TicketsAdmission includes entrance to the Main zoo, Tisch Children's Zoo, and one visit to the 4-D Theater. All visitors must have a date-specific ticket. Every guest, every day.
Looking for some fun and interesting experiences in New York City? Check out this perfect one-day itinerary of things to do in Central Park that you can customize based on your interests. Without a plan or internal gps system, you can run around New York City's Central Park all day long – like I did. Literally.
If you're walking at a moderate pace (approximately 3 miles per hour), you could cover the park's length in about 50 minutes. For those walking briskly (around 4 miles per hour), the journey from one end of the park to the other would take roughly 37.5 minutes.
The best way to see most, is to do as the locals and ride a bike. Central Park is extremely bike friendly, and the bike paths weave in and out of the major attractions. For a guided experience, there are Central Park bike tours for $29. Biking around Central Park is the perfect way to spend a day in the Big Apple!
As mentioned earlier, the route should take 4-5 hours to complete, but I imagine you will want to take breaks and find some relaxing spots to sit down at along the tour. And while you can see a good amount of Central Park in one day, there is little chance that you can see ALL of Central Park.
Built between 1858 and 1873, the park comprises six percent of Manhattan's land area (843 acres) and is 2.5 miles long and a half-mile wide. The most frequented urban park in the nation, it attracts over 15 million visitors yearly. It is the largest work of art in New York City.
The northern perimeter of the park has its share of street crime, but there are only three NYPD cameras along that stretch. There are five however, along Central Park South, where several pricey hotels, including the Essex House, are located and tourists gather to take carriage rides through the park.
Central Park is owned by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation but has been managed by the Central Park Conservancy since 1998, under a contract with the municipal government in a public–private partnership.
Designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, Central Park influenced the development of urban parks nationwide and is widely regarded a masterpiece of landscape architecture. Central Park is a National Historic Landscape (1963) and a Scenic Landscape of the City of New York (1974).