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I agree completely on Prospect Park. Point was to disagree with the earlier poster that the city parks he listed would rank among the top 10 or 15 in the nation. Prospect, Riverside, ok, but Washington Square? Nice but it has heavy competition from Philadelphia alone. Phila together with Savannah and N. O. could knock Washington Sq out of the top 10.
I think Washington Square Park has a shot at top 15 because of how bustling and well-utilized is in a similar manner to the city squares for Philadelphia and Savannah. It's certainly a very active urban park.
Technically that’s a national park so I’m not sure if it really counts.
The National Mall is a man-made park in the city while the parks you're referring to are natural parks across the nation. I have heard people make the argument that the National Mall is not a park though which can be debated, I guess. It definitely includes more things to do than any park in the entire country and maybe the world.
I like Patterson Park and Federal Hill Park in Baltimore and Titus Sparrows Park in Boston's South End
I've heard a lot about Leakin Park in Baltimore (courtesy of Serial) but looking at google images, Patterson Park is a classic English-Irish pastoral landscape park with turf and shade trees. What Franklin Park Boston would be if the "country meadow" hadn't become a golf course.
The National Mall is a man-made park in the city while the parks you're referring to are natural parks across the nation. I have heard people make the argument that the National Mall is not a park though which can be debated, I guess. It definitely includes more things to do than any park in the entire country and maybe the world.
They include places like The Grand Canyon, Yosemite, Yellowstone, or Redwood.
Exactly. It’s similar to say Central Park, but it’s technically a national park like Yellowstone. I’m not making a call one way or another on whether it counts, but it’s definitely debatable.
Technically that’s a national park so I’m not sure if it really counts.
Well, since most of the parks managed by the District Department of Parks and Recreation are small "pocket" parks on triangles or neighborhood parks, and since just about all of the District's largest parks — Rock Creek Park being the jewel in the crown — are managed by the National Park Service, making the national/local park distinction in DC is perhaps splitting hairs; seems that tne NPS is also a "local" park operator in the District.
Something I didn't know in looking up information on this: Rock Creek Park is actually the country's third-oldest national park, authorized in 1890.
Philadelphia also has some "local" parks under NPS jurisdiction, in particular Washington Square. The City of Philadelphia turned over management of William Penn's southeast public square to the NPS sometime around 2000, I think. It happens also to be a mass burial ground for soldiers who fought in the Revolutionary War, and the Tomb of the Unkown Soldier of the American Revolution is located in it.
Independence Mall, stretching for three blocks north from Independence Hall, was built by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania between 1955 and 1965, but the NPS also manages it now, as it does Independence Square Park to Independence Hall's south. (Washington Square sits immediately southwest of Independence Square.
The National Mall is a man-made park in the city while the parks you're referring to are natural parks across the nation. I have heard people make the argument that the National Mall is not a park though which can be debated, I guess. It definitely includes more things to do than any park in the entire country and maybe the world.
They include places like The Grand Canyon, Yosemite, Yellowstone, or Redwood.
I'd clearly define the National Mall in DC as an urban city park, but that's just me. Even if yes the city of Washington, DC doesn't maintain it, and that it was actually for all I know the National Park Service(NPS) that maintains it. I'm now wondering, does Washington, DC's park District maintain that park, or NPS? My guess, is that it is NPS that maintains it.
And of course we all know there's a clear difference between a park within a city, vs. say a rural national park like the Grand Canyon in Arizona. I also define the Gateway Arch and that surrounding park in downtown St. Louis as an urban park too, and NOT as a national park.
Quote:
Originally Posted by OyCrumbler
I think Washington Square Park has a shot at top 15 because of how bustling and well-utilized is in a similar manner to the city squares for Philadelphia and Savannah. It's certainly a very active urban park.
Philadelphia has some great parks too, that's for sure. Ditto with the square parks(20-30 overall?), throughout the older built portion of Savannah, GA. I have no doubt Boston would have some really nice parks too, and not just the park that was created when the 'Big Dig' project was finished.
And while it's a smaller city, Mobile, AL has a few parks that actually are nice. Check out British Park, and Tricentennial Park. In Springfield, OH(where my late grandfather was born in), Snyder Park(and along the Buck Creek, which flows by this park) surprised me as to how nice it was.
IAnd of course we all know there's a clear difference between a park within a city, vs. say a rural national park like the Grand Canyon in Arizona. I also define the Gateway Arch and that surrounding park in downtown St. Louis as an urban park too, and NOT as a national park.
There's a big difference between a city park and state parks too. Chicago has fabulous Lincoln Park, Washington Park, Grant Park and other well known city parks but out in the suburbs you have the tranquil Cook County Forest Preserve. Farther away is Starved Rock State Park. I don't know of any national parks in Illinois but there are plenty of well preserved public places outside the city that aren't in the National Park System.
With the National Mall, the Gateway Arch, Independence National Historical Park and other urban national parks, I agree they are urban parks; hard to argue otherwise. I'd say they have a different purpose than an all around city park like Central Park in New York because they're either preserving important national monuments like Independence Hall or, as with St Louis, they're constructing a monument to some national theme where there was none. Still, they're wide open, popular and accessible. Independence may be less of a city park than, say, Rittenhouse Sq or Fairmount Park; a lot of visitors are tourists or people who take their visiting relatives to see the bell, rather than parks that residents use frequently themselves. Tourists visit the arch, locals go to Forest Park? IDK but they seem somewhat different that way.
There's a big difference between a city park and state parks too. Chicago has fabulous Lincoln Park, Washington Park, Grant Park and other well known city parks but out in the suburbs you have the tranquil Cook County Forest Preserve. Farther away is Starved Rock State Park. I don't know of any national parks in Illinois but there are plenty of well preserved public places outside the city that aren't in the National Park System.
With the National Mall, the Gateway Arch, Independence National Historical Park and other urban national parks, I agree they are urban parks; hard to argue otherwise. I'd say they have a different purpose than an all around city park like Central Park in New York because they're either preserving important national monuments like Independence Hall or, as with St Louis, they're constructing a monument to some national theme where there was none. Still, they're wide open, popular and accessible. Independence may be less of a city park than, say, Rittenhouse Sq or Fairmount Park; a lot of visitors are tourists or people who take their visiting relatives to see the bell, rather than parks that residents use frequently themselves. Tourists visit the arch, locals go to Forest Park? IDK but they seem somewhat different that way.
Yea, I think municipal, state, and national parks/monuments in terms of what entity is in charge of it is interesting, but I think a park set in an urban environment regardless of what entity is running it should count towards being an urban park. NYC also has some state parks that are very much urban parks even if not run by the city of New York. Gantry Plaza State Park would be one of these.
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I also want to put in a note for future parks that I think can be great. Los Angeles has the Inglewood Oil Field that are set to decommission and likely become at least partially parkland within my lifetime. Parts of the area is already greenspace, but it's possible that quite a bit more of it will become such in the following decades. I think one of things about Los Angeles that's not great is that there aren't that much in public parks in the basin area where people actually live. While this is still somewhat in the hills, it's in a hillside area that's an odd outcropping within the basin rather than the larger mountains surrounding it and the northern and western edges of this can be/become quite urban.
Boston Common (oldest park in the US) is adjacent to the Public Garden forms the head of the Emerald Necklace park system designed by Olmstead, of which Franklin Park is the large dangling pendant. That said, Franklin Park got deformed by overlaying a not-great zoo and a golf course over the original design, and is not in an area that tourists tend to visit, and the Arnold Arboretum that is (in terms of entrances) a mile away from it gets more park tourism. While not a park per se, the Mount Auburn Cemetery (the nation's oldest garden cemetery) in Cambridge functions in many ways as one for Cambridge, and Forest Hills Cemetery (near Franklin Park and the Arnold Arboretum) likewise does.
While I would rank the Emerald Necklace (including the older parks of the Common and Public Garden) high as an urban park *system*, the individual components are not necessarily as distinguished (except for the Public Garden itself). (And the Emerald Necklace is only part of a much larger metropolitan park system that was distinguished in its vision and initial execution, later marred by later infrastructure overlays/insertions.)
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(courtesy of Serial) but looking at google images, Patterson Park is a classic English-Irish pastoral landscape park with turf and shade trees. What Franklin Park Boston would be if the "country meadow" hadn't become a golf course.
I also define the Gateway Arch and that surrounding park in downtown St. Louis as an urban park too, and NOT as a national park.
