Tompkins Square Park

Tompkins Square Park in Alphabet City neighborhood near the East Village is possibly New York City's most well known body weight fitness area. The park also has quite a history of its own and bears reading about especially for those fans of social justice and NYC history.

The workout area itself can be found on the north east corner of the park off of East 10th Street and Avenue B.

Popularized by fitness personality Al Kavaldo the park is home to many of NYC's bar athletes. Many of his YouTube videos and tutorials use this park in order to demonstrate the moves. The facility itself appears to be somewhat older and bears many hallmarks of a children's playground....for adults. Do be on the look out for kids looking to commandeer the space, and please be patient  with the little humans.

The facility itself is designed in a monkey bar style  with attached pull up bars, an arched horizontal ladder and a myriad of bars and poles designed to test your imagination as much as your fitness abilities. There is also a set of parallel bars off to the side.

As you may be able to discern from the pictures, the paint is fading on some of the equipment and is in need of a paint job. The park also features rubber matting designed to soften one's landings however it also appears to be wearing and in need of repair. 

Arched horizontal ladder

Parallel Bars

 

East River Park

East River Park is part of the beautiful riverfront promenade stretching along the southern part of Manhattan's East River waterfront. The park contains amphitheaters, athletic courts and a bike trail that runs under the historic Williamsburg Bridge.

 

Nestled East of the FDR drive between East Houston Street and East 6th Street lies the parks fitness equipment as well as a full 400 meter track which can be seen in the background of the picture above. This Alphabet City parks features a pullup bar, set of parallel bars, decline benches, monkey bars (horizontal ladder) pull up rings and set of decline parallel bars shown in the picture above.

The fitness area is covered in rubber matting designed to protect participants who fall off the bar or perhaps take a hard fall. Most of the equipment is comprised of metal bars planted on wooden stakes. While the equipment is solid but it has definitely taken a beating over the years and might benefit from a paint job. 
Given the proximity to a first class running track, this workout location is one of the most comprehensive outdoor fitness locations in New York City.

John Jay Park

John Jay Park on the Upper East Side features a nice yet small collection of fitness equipment that is more than sufficient for most workouts. It also features some equipment that is only really useful for folks who are either extremely out of shape or disabled. Finally there is also a notable instance of hilariously incompetent equipment assembly which leaves a set of new parallel bars completely useless.


The park itself is located between East End Avenue and the FDR Drive. The fitness area is located in the far south east corner of the park, and is hidden away behind the basketball courts.

Note: As an aside, the children's playground equipment looks really cool and I wish we had equipment of that caliber when I was much younger. I do recommend bringing your kids here if you are so privileged.

 Useful Equipment

1. Pull up bars - Two bars both of which are more than adequate for most adults. 
2. Parallel bars - About 5 feet off the ground, these bars are very similar to the gymnastics equipment except that they are solid metal and do not bend. They also require a bit of a jump to mount; unless you have incredible strength. 
3. Monkey bars - These bars are quite high above the ground and feature a portion that runs parallel to the ground as well as a portion that ascends/descends. Traveling the latter portion will most certainly challenge your back and arm strength.
   
   
   

   

   Monkey Bars

   
   

   

   Parallel Bars and Pullup Bars

   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   Slightly less useful Equipment
   
   Equipment designed for seniors, those out of shape or disabled include the following: A leg swinging device, a slanted board-thingie, an arm rotating/bending device (see Medieval Torture Device) and a Leg Press machine. While it is wonderful that the park is dedicating equipment for this specific population, it is my personal opinion that body weight and basic free weight exercises would be far more suitable for this population. These devices have absolutely no utility for anyone with basic levels of physical fitness and health.
   
   
   
   

   

   Leg Press

   
   

   
   

   
   

   
   

   
   

   
   

   

   Leg swinging device

   
   

   

   Medieval Torture Device

   
    

Incompetence
Unfortunately the park also put its money into what was supposed to be two new sets of parallel bars. However whomever installed the bars apparently had never seen parallel bars before, and certainly chose not to read the label. Instead they chose to install them as follows:

Bottom Line: Its got what you need for a full upper-body workout even if some pieces of equipment are largely useless.

Marcus Garvey Park (Mt. Morris Park)

Marcus Garvey Park, sometimes known by its former name, Mount Morris Park is nestled between Madison Avenue to the east and Mount Morris Park West to the west, and between 120th Street and 124th Street to the north and south. The park is essentially a square surrounded by quaint brownstones and older apartment buildings which provide a warm and local feeling. Most of the facilities including the pool, baseball fields, amphitheater, basketball courts, playground and workout area ring the lower portion of the park which is dominated by a hill and a former fire-watch tower which still stands on top.

The hill itself contains stairs which are excellent for those who wish to add hill sprinting to their workout.

The fitness area can be found on the Madison Avenue side of the park near the basketball courts roughly parallel to 121st Street. I found it to be a relatively standard NYC workout area consisting of two pullup bars, a set of parallel bars, a monkey bar, two low bars (waist high), a diagonal bar, a vertical ladder, a metal bench, pushup bars, and a three pedestal setup surrounding a pole.

The pullup bars were of slightly offsetting heights, with the taller of the two being just high enough for me to do hanging leg raises without touching the floor with my feet. The monkey bars were slightly on the lower side which meant that most adults would have to bend their knees while swinging from them. 

I found the parallel bars to be slightly on the short side of the height spectrum and would've preferred them to be a tad taller. The paint was wearing off the edges of this equipment as well (which you cannot see in this picture).

I am still in the process of discerning the utility of certain pieces of equipment such as the diagonal bar (seen on the left side of the first picture). From what I can tell it is meant for either testing ones vertical leap, or allowing for one to travel up and down the bar while hanging by only their hands.  This particular bar had numbers tagged on which may have originally stood for the height of the bar at that point. I must confess that these labels did not appear accurate to me.

I also noticed a three pedestal setup surrounding a pole towards the back of the fitness area. While I do not know what the designated purpose of this equipment is, I suspect that it was designed for stepping up. This would also explain the varying heights of the pedestals. If anyone can explain the purpose I'd love to hear from you.

Overall most of the equipment appeared sturdy enough, the area was fairly clean, and safely covered by rubber mats.

The park has a lovely neighborhood feeling to it, and certainly has a lot to offer in the realm of body weight fitness. However the equipment has a particularly bland feeling to it and I would not recommend traveling half-way across the city for a workout ..... unless you were going to see or participate in a Street Workout competition.

Chelsea Park

Chelsea Park lies on 28th street between 9th and 10th Avenue the park contains a rectangular multi-use AstroTurf field that I've witnessed hosting soccer, softball, flag football and ultimate Frisbee matches. There is a narrow running track lining the perimeter of the field as well. The park has two full basketball courts along with handball courts as well. This outdoor fitness center certainly has all the accessories for a good workout.

Of particular relevance is the adult jungle gym and the attached pull-up bars; one higher and one lower attached to a horizontal ladder.  Detached from the jungle gym is a pair of parallel bars as well as three decline benches of varying angles. While the ground beneath the equipment is all padded with soft rubber cushioning I would still recommend landing softly when descending from the bar.

While I am a huge fan of parallel bars in general, the ones in this park are of exceedingly low height as well as inconveniently narrow. If I had designed this piece of equipment i wouldn't been optimally placed at least 6 inches higher and at least an extra foot of width between the bars.

The declines benches are made of wood with metal handles at the top. They're normally used for abdominal exercises such as leg raises and sit ups.

I found the park to be a bit on the dirty side with pigeon droppings covering the rubber mats under the equipment. There was a rancid stench coming from the sewer as well as a seemingly homeless gentleman sleeping in the corner. While I'm happy to contend with whatever the environment can throw at me, I figured this information ought to be shared in the best interest of my readers.

While I wouldn't travel half-way across the world for these particular pullup bars it is certainly a convenient spot to knock out a few reps while in the neighborhood.

Columbus Park

 

Hidden at the southern edge of Chinatown near the location of the infamous Five Points neighborhood lies Columbus Park. While the newbies and natives made famous by the film, Gangs of New York have long since left this world, the area is now home to the city's many courthouses and municipal buildings. This park itself stretches from Bayard street down to Worth street and features many amenities including children's playgrounds, basketball courts, soccer fields and of course an adult jungle gym.

This park is often used by workers from the surrounding buildings and institutions looking to get in shape during their lunch break. (see article)

Equipment

The equipment is all attached to one centralized piece, the horizontal ladder aka monkey bar.

Monkey Bar - Roughly 6-7 feet above the ground and spans about 10 feet in length.

Pull up bars - Two bars for doing pull ups. 

Vertical ladder- Great for human flags and hanging leg raises.

Parallel bars - There are two one of which is much lower than the other and may be useful for pushups. Only the higher parallel bar will be useful for dips.

Pole - In absence of a climbing rope this is great for climbing up.

Low Bar- There are also low bars along with the parallel bar which are useful for doing body weight rows.



Ps. I took the above graphic from another website but I can't seem to find the appropriate link. If anyone recognizes where that picture comes from please feel free to post it in the comments so that I may give credit.

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.