Bryant Park

Between 5th & 6th Avenues, West 40 & West 42 Streets

Manhattan

Acres: 9.60

The site of New York Fashion Week, winter ice skating at The Pond, free summer movies on the lawn, and endless meals and meetings at its tables, Bryant Park serves its role well as a centrally located Manhattan park. Just blocks from Times Square and the theater district and mere feet from the New York Public Library, the park is an ideal resting spot for the thousands of tourists and residents who pass by its boundaries each day.

Pull up a chair or hop on Le Carrousel to experience the charm of this Parisian-esque park!

The City of New York established a potter’s field--that is, a burial place for unknown or indigent people--on the site of modern day Bryant Park in 1823. The potter’s field continued to be used until 1840.

Around that same time, between 1839 and 1843, the Croton Distributing Reservoir was built where the New York Public Library now stands, on the east side of the park. The land of the former potter’s field became Reservoir Park in 1847. The reservoir, which was the city’s prime water source for a time, was removed in the 1890s. In 1884, the park was renamed Bryant Park for New York Evening Post editor William Cullen Bryant.

The Landmarks Preservation Commission designated Bryant Park a Scenic Landmark in 1974, and the park went through major reconstruction in 1988, reopening its gates in April 1992.