Pier 26 Opens in Hudson River Park: Bring Your Family for a Fall Visit!

Pier 26 Opens in Hudson River Park: Bring Your Family for a Fall Visit!

We’re all for pumpkin patches and apple picking, but the fall is also the perfect time to enjoy NYC’s parks with your family. More than ever because of COVID-19, parks are a great way for your kiddos to spend some time outdoors in a large, open space. Looking for your next go-to park this fall? We’ve got the scoop on the brand-new, eco-friendly park on Pier 26 in Hudson River Park! A long time in the making, the Tribeca park is finally open — perfect timing for sweater weather, our favorite season. Check out our guide to everything your family needs to know.

Psst… Check out our 2020 Fall Bucket List: Things to Do With the Family before your visit to Pier 26!   

Eco-Friendly Experience

In classic NYC style, this 2.5-acre expansion is super Instagrammable with walkways over the river, a view of the NYC skyline, and a beautiful deck. But what we love about Pier 26 is the environmental, nature-filled adventure that it takes you on. A 15,000-square-foot wetland called the Tide Deck is a human-engineered rocky marsh. Here, you’ll find marine and plant life from the installed smooth cordgrass and spaces carved into rocks that made tidal pools. This area floods twice a day, and you’ll definitely want to be there when it does! Play meets education at Pier 26, because your little ones will love discovering all of the sea creatures and plants, from tiny snails to red-tailed hawks to the soon-to-come Biohuts, artificial habitats where they can observe fish. If your kiddos (like ours) are getting restless on Zoom, take the educational fun outdoors at Hudson River Park as you explore the oh-so-many eco-habitats.

Seating

We know how important seating is for our NYC parents. While your kiddos are playing, you may want to take a seat and relax, or maybe you want a place to sit down and eat lunch together. Well, you’re in luck, because seating at Pier 26 is in itself an elaborate feature. Right by the sports court, there are tons of tables and chairs, complete with umbrellas. We recommend this spot for a pier picnic! One of the most Instagrammable spots in the park and a great seating area are the open sheds that look like aesthetically-pleasing versions of gazebos. Inside these sheds are six-foot-wide swings that are absolutely adorable for a fall family photo. Also check out the stadium-style seating near the sports court, bar stools, and deck chairs. For our NYC mamas who are going crazy with work-from-home, take your work outside for the day at Pier 26, where you’ll find desk-level shelves for your laptop to type away! 

Fun & Games 

Little ones are just full of energy (sometimes too much for us to handle!), so how can they have some fun at Pier 26? Besides checking out the super cool wildlife that takes you on a journey through five native ecological zones: woodland forest, coastal grassland, maritime scrub, rocky tidal zone, and, of course, the Hudson River, there’s also a sports court and a beautiful lawn. Our favorite part about Pier 26 is that it’s so peaceful, so bring a children’s book and have story time outside on the lawn or the stadium-style seating. But no park is fully complete without a playground: the next part of the project is going to be to build a $4 million playground for your little ones, so stay tuned! Pro tip: visit the playground at Pier 25 first, then head over to Pier 26 so that your kiddos get their playground-fill in. There is also a $30 million educational center in the works, so we have a lot to look forward to here at Hudson River Park.  

Views, Views & More Views! 

We can’t talk about Pier 26 without really diving into how absolutely stunning this place is! While we are big Instagram fans (who isn’t?), there’s more to appreciate here than the perfect photo. As you move from one ecological zone to the next, you’ll encounter new sights that tell a story about nature and its importance. It’s not every day that we get to see woodland forests in NYC, so take it all in on your peaceful journey. 

For our lower Manhattan families, head over to Pier 26 to check out this new Tribeca experience. And for our NYC families not in lower Manhattan, mark down Pier 26 on your bucket list now to plan a visit with your family this fall. Once again, NYC has inspired us during these trying times with something to lift our spirits, to get us outside and active as the vibrant city that we are. We couldn’t be happier about this addition to Tribeca!