Hudson River South
Navigate the tidal corridor of the West Side, where the industrial footprints of a hundred steamship companies have been reconfigured into a four-mile-long park.
The Hudson River was the strategic highway of the American Revolution. Whoever controlled this waterway controlled access between New York and the interior colonies, making the river a vital military corridor.
At a Glance
- Route
- Battery Park City Esplanade north through Hudson River Park, Pier 40, Christopher Street Pier, Little Island, Chelsea Piers, the High Line and Hudson Yards connection, Pier 66A Maritime, and the Midtown Piers to 42nd Street
- Distance
- Approximately 4 miles
- Duration
- Full day (walk or bicycle)
- Difficulty
- Easy — flat, mostly paved Hudson River Greenway; some pier surfaces
- Best Season
- Year-round; summer for full pier programming; spring for battery gardens and Little Island blooms; fall for harbor light
- Greenway
- Hudson River Greenway runs 13 miles from Battery Park to Fort Washington Park — the longest continuous waterfront path in New York City; hudsonriverpark.org
Walking north from The Battery, the harbor's grip loosens and the western edge of Manhattan stretches into a long, continuous line of public space. What was once a dense field of industrial piers is now reconfigured for the modern flaneur, yet the underlying geometry remains: streets run perpendicular to the water and piers still occupy their original footprints.
Battery Park City Esplanade
Built entirely on landfill — 1.2 million cubic yards excavated for the original World Trade Center in the 1970s. The shoreline here is artifice, extending 1,000 feet into the river to mirror the length of the commercial piers that once stood here.
Robert F. Wagner Jr. Park
An expansive verdant lawn and the Park Pavilion offering a roof-deck vista of the Statue of Liberty.
Battery Park City Esplanade
A continuous riverside promenade running the length of Battery Park City — granite balustrades, harbor benches, and an unbroken Hudson view from Wagner Park north to Tribeca.
South Cove
A serene, wooden-bridge-laden inlet designed to foster a tranquil connection to the river's edge through rock formations and jetties.
North Cove Marina
A deep-water basin at Brookfield Place hosting yachts up to 180 feet and home to the Manhattan Sailing School.
Rockefeller Park
A wide green space featuring the imaginative bronze sculptures of Tom Otterness.
Museum of Jewish Heritage
A living memorial to the Holocaust, its hexagonal architecture anchoring the southern tip.
mjhnyc.org
Irish Hunger Memorial
Vesey StreetAn authentic stone cottage transported from County Mayo, set within a rugged, famine-era landscape.
Hudson River Park
Once over 100 steamship companies. Decline in the 1960s as containerization moved cargo to Port Newark/Elizabeth. After the 1973 collapse of the West Side Highway, removal of the elevated road unveiled a riverscape hidden for a century. Today: a 550-acre, four-mile greenway from Chambers Street to West 59th Street. hudsonriverpark.org · 212-627-2020
Pier 25
North Moore StreetThe longest pier in Hudson River Park — sports courts, seating, small landscapes, a maritime dock with space for historic vessels, and a water taxi stop with views to the Statue of Liberty.
Pier 26
Hubert StreetReconstructed to its original dimensions. Focuses on the ecology of the estuary, featuring an engineered wetland and a community boathouse.
Pier 34
Canal StreetThe art deco vents for the Holland Tunnel, the world's first mechanically ventilated underwater vehicular highway (1927), rise on the finger pier where you stand right next to the massive ventilation shaft.
Pier 40
A 14-acre remnant of industrial scale, originally a 1962 terminal for the Holland America Line, now a hub for athletic fields, an estuary ecology lab, and community rowing. The periphery walkway offers a direct line of sight to the historic Lackawanna Terminal across the river in Hoboken.
Little
In 1804, a mortally wounded Alexander Hamilton was brought to the home of his friend William Bayard Jr. near Jane Street, where he died. In 1807, Robert Fulton launched the first commercially successful steamboat, the Clermont, from this shoreline — a crossing of the Hudson that marked the beginning of the steam age in transportation.
Remnants of the area's maritime past survive in a few facades of seamen's hotels: the Great Eastern Hotel (1858) at 180 Christopher Street served transatlantic passengers, now an AIDS hospice; the Keller Hotel near Barrow Street was a transient hotel for sailors and longshoremen; the Holland Hotel at West 10th Street catered to stevedores and tugboat captains.
American Seamen's Friend Society Sailors' Home & Institute
505-507 West StreetThe maritime structure, a safehaven for comercial sailors, was built in 1908 by William A. Boring, the same architect as Ellis Island. In April 1912, this building served as the primary refuge for the surviving crew members of the RMS Titanic. The ballroom that once hosted survivirs of the RMS Titanic converted to Jane Stret Theater. The residences now a Eurohostel.
Christopher Street Pier (Pier 45)
This sweeping, 850-foot finger pier features an expansive sunbathing lawn and wooden boardwalks that serve as a scenic community backyard. A bow notch — a semi-circular indentation in the bulkhead just north of Pier 45 — was designed to accommodate the prows of exceptionally long vessels.
Pier 46
Contains sports fields for active recreation.
Pier 49 Pile Field
The historic wooden pile field of old Pier 49 is preserved in the river as a thriving habitat.
Gansevoort Peninsula
The former sanitation facility transformed into a public beach oasis, complete with a sandy lounge shore, a resilient salt marsh, and David Hammons's monumental Day's End open-air structural sculpture inspired by Gordon Matta-Clark, who literally cut into an abandoned pierhead in 1975 to create an illicit sculpture, since demolished. FDNY's historic Marine Company 1 station house remains on the bulkhead where fireboats dock ready for deployment.
Little Island — Pier 55
This 2.4-acre floating island is supported by 132 concrete 'tulip' pots, creating a lush botanical landscape of over 350 species of flowers, trees, and shrubs. The surviving steel frame — the last remaining piece of the Cunard–White Star Pier 54 terminal building — has been completely preserved as the grand gateway framing entrance to Little Island at West 13th Street.
littleisland.org
Chelsea Corridor
By 1910, the piers here were dominated by passenger liner sheds designed by Warren and Wetmore — the same firm responsible for Grand Central Terminal — built to accommodate transatlantic liners. Nearby, the Seamen's House YMCA, opened in 1931, a white-brick Art Deco/Art Moderne tower designed to resemble a luxury ocean liner, complete with rows of distinct circular porthole windows facing out over the river. It was an all-in-one enclave for sailors 'on the beach' (out of employment), offering affordable cabin rentals, a gymnasium, a swimming pool, and an employment registry office. Today the luxury Maritime Hotel.
Chelsea Piers
Piers 59–61, originally built for the elite Cunard and White Star lines, now a massive sports and entertainment complex with a large marina skirting the three piers. Pier 62 features a skate park, active parkland, landscaped garden paths and a carved carousel of Hudson River wildlife. Pier 63 is one big great lawn, while Pier 64 has been landscaped into a hilly tree-lined promenade. Hudson River Community Sailing operates out of Pier 66.
chelseapiers.com
Pier 63 at Hudson River Park
A great-lawn pier framed by Chelsea Waterside Park — an open green stage for sunbathing, picnics, summer concerts, and uninterrupted views across the Hudson to Hoboken.
Pier 66A Maritime
Not a traditional pier — an historic B&O Railroad Float Bridge with a series of gangways to a floating barge bar and the 1929 lightship Frying Pan.
fryingpan.com
The High Line
A 1.45-mile elevated park from Gansevoort Street to W 34th Street, threading through converted factory buildings and luxury glass towers. Built on the former New York Central Railroad freight spur (1930s), constructed to lift dangerous rail traffic off 10th Avenue.
thehighline.org
Hudson Yards
A 28-acre mixed-use complex at the northern terminus of the High Line. Attractions include the Vessel (Thomas Heatherwick's 150-foot-tall interactive staircase sculpture), the Edge Observation Deck (highest outdoor sky deck in the Western Hemisphere at 1,100 feet), and the Shed (innovative cultural center).
hudsonyards.com
Midtown Piers
Once a gritty district of slaughterhouses, rail yards, and dockworkers, the West Side became known as Hell's Kitchen — the neighborhood that inspired Budd Schulberg's On the Waterfront. Today a 33-block stretch of commercial piers serves commuter ferries, sightseeing boats, yacht charters, and dinner cruises.
Pier 79 — Midtown Ferry Terminal
West 39th StreetA glass pavilion built atop the ventilation towers of the Lincoln Tunnel. Primary hub of NY Waterway operations, with free shuttle buses.
nywaterway.com · 800-533-3779
Pier 83 — Circle Line
West 43rd StreetHomeport since 1944 of Circle Line Sightseeing Cruises, offering the famed full circumnavigation tours of Manhattan Island.
circleline42.com · 212-563-3200
Pier 84
Midtown's premier public waterfront access point: spacious plaza, sunbathing lawns, a waterside café, a dog run, and a water spray area. Manhattan Kayak Company operates kayak and paddleboard rentals and offers guided river tours.
manhattankayak.com
Pier 86 — Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum
Housed aboard the WWII-era aircraft carrier USS Intrepid. Flight deck of aircraft from multiple eras; submarine USS Growler (the only American guided-missile sub open to the public); the Space Shuttle Enterprise.
intrepidmuseum.org
Piers 88 & 90 — Manhattan Cruise Terminal
Originally built in the 1930s, the cruise terminal has been modernized for contemporary cruise liners with five berths and rooftop parking. The French ocean liner SS Normandie capsized at Pier 88 in 1942 and was hauled away for scrap in 1946.
Getting Here
| Stop / Location | Category | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Chambers St (1/2/3) | Subway | Battery Park City Esplanade southern access; walk west to the waterfront |
| Houston St (1) | Subway | Pier 40 and the |
| Christopher St–Sheridan Sq (1) | Subway | Christopher Street Pier (Pier 45) and the central Greenwich Village waterfront |
| 14 St (A/C/E) | Subway | Little Island / Pier 54 (W 13 St) and the Meatpacking District waterfront |
| 23 St (C/E) | Subway | Chelsea Piers and Pier 57 area |
| 34 St–Penn Station (A/C/E) | Subway | Midtown piers corridor; walk west to the Hudson River |
| Hudson River Greenway | Bike/Walk | Continuous 13-mile separated path from Battery Park to Fort Washington Park; free; hudsonriverpark.org |
| NYC Ferry — Hudson stops | Ferry | Multiple Hudson River stops from Pier 11; ferry.nyc |
| NY Waterway — Pier 79 | Ferry | Midtown Ferry Terminal at W 39 St; free shuttle buses to Midtown; nywaterway.com |
| Little Island | Walk | Enter from the Greenway at W 13 St; free admission; littleisland.org |
Community Logs
Photos, ratings, and quick tips from people who've made the trip.
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