One moment
Islands
Governors Island
An island worth the crossing · New York, United States
4.7★Rating
1,408Reviews
$Price level
Open daily year-round 7am–10pm; the South Island Park closes at dusk and the Brooklyn ferries run seasonally, roughly late May to early NovemberBest time
The experience
172 acres in New York Harbor, 800 yards off Lower Manhattan and 400 off Brooklyn, an army post and then a coast guard base until 1996 and a fully year-round public park only since 2021. Fort Jay, a pentagonal work with four masonry bastions and a dry moat, dates from 1794; the circular four-tiered Castle Williams, 210 feet across and once mounting 104 cannon, was built between 1807 and 1811. The southern end carries four artificial hills raised to lift the park clear of the flood plain — Outlook Hill is the tallest at 70 feet — plus Hammock Grove, Picnic Point and the six-acre Liggett Terrace.
A car-free island a seven-minute ferry from Wall Street, with a hill you climb for the harbour.
harbour airman-made hillshammockscar-free
Where it is
New York, United States · New York Harbor, off Lower Manhattan. Coordinates from the listing we sourced it from.
DirectionsWhat a membership adds.
Everything above is free: the name, the photo, the rating, the exact spot. What members get is the part you can't Google: the sourced insider tip for this place (what to order, when to go, what to skip), every day of your trips unlocked in full with the insider tip on every researched stop, and the concierge at full strength, answering with your own insider tips, no daily meter.
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