Riverdale Park

Riverdale Park is a 144.29-acre park stretching from Palisade Avenue down to the Hudson River in the Riverdale section of the northwestern Bronx. The park's steep, heavily wooded terrain descends from the residential bluffs to the river's edge, preserving one of the most dramatic natural landscapes in the city.

The park's hillside forest is one of the largest remaining contiguous woodlands in New York City, with mature oaks, beeches, tulip trees, and understory plants that support diverse bird and wildlife populations. The steep terrain that prevented development has inadvertently preserved a forest ecosystem of significant ecological value.

Riverdale Park provides hiking trails through its wooded slopes, connecting the residential neighborhood above to the railroad tracks and Hudson River shoreline below. The trails offer a genuine forest immersion experience that is remarkable for its location within the city limits.

The park's western boundary runs along the Metro-North Railroad's Hudson Line, and beyond the tracks the Hudson River flows past with the Palisades cliffs of New Jersey rising on the opposite shore. The views from the park's elevated sections are among the most dramatic in the Bronx.

Riverdale Park represents the wildest category of New York City parkland: steep, wooded terrain that is too rugged for development and too ecologically valuable to clear. Its preservation as a forested hillside connecting neighborhood to river is one of the most farsighted conservation decisions in the borough's history.