Thomas Jefferson Park

 Located at 114th Street and 1st Avenue in East Harlem, Thomas Jefferson Park provides the full package as an outdoor workout facility. The park contains an outdoor public pool, soccer field, baseball field, basketball courts, children's playground, running track and adult fitness equipment.

The adult fitness equipment is generally in good condition and did not appear to worn or unsafe. There is adequate shade near and around the site leaving it quite pleasant to use during the hot summer months.

The adult fitness center consisted of two pullup bars  of differing heights, a set of parallel bars, a vertical ladder, a horizontal ladder (monkey bars), a metal bench with a bar along the top for situps, two horizontal bars about waist high, and a diagonal climbing bar. There were also a number of A-frame picnic tables in the area that could serve as platforms for box jumps, or as a clean spot to do situps/pushups.The fitness area is also served by relatively soft rubber mats that do help lessen the impact of jumps and possibly falls.

One limiting factor was the relatively low-height of the horizontal ladder and the pullup bars. Tall folks be advised; you will have to bend your knees while doing pullups and hanging leg raises on these bars.

As mentioned above, the facility also offers an outdoor track constructed out of some sort of relatively soft carpeting material. While the Parks Department website claims that the track is a regulation sized .25 miles (400 meters), a Google Earth measurement indicated that this track is actually closer to 315 meters. Running the track is quite pleasant and rather forgiving on the feet.

One of the few qualms I have with this location is that children from the playground often migrate to the adult fitness equipment and may attempt to commandeer  the equipment or climb on the ladder. A dose of patience is advised; my experience as been that the children are normally cordial if you ask them to share the equipment.

My somewhat larger beef is with children and adults who sit on the running track while watching the numerous soccer games transpiring on the pitch. The main danger is sprinters colliding with children or adults attempting to retrieve soccer balls that were kicked out of bounds. Do be careful.

My relatively slight peeves aside, this is a wonderful location for all of your outdoor workout needs and I highly recommend it.