May Day parade. The rest of the year, the park offers residents from nearby neighborhoods—including many students, activists, and immigrants— a place to stretch their legs. I could hear Somali and Spanish spoken from the playing fields as I walked my bike around an urban park designed to seem a hundred miles from any city. Having begun my park day with industrial history, I had to wind it up with romantic-literary history at Minnehaha Park. I leave my bike at a Nice Ride station and hop on a Hiawatha-line light-rail car for the quick southward trip. This vast and rambling park includes a vintage railway station and a restored pioneer house—but the main attraction is Minnehaha Falls, a 50-foot cataract to which you descend on a series of switchback stairways. The falls became Minneapolis’s
premier 19th-century tourist attrac- tion after Henry Wadsworth Longfel- low celebrated them in “The Song of Hiawatha.” They still attract plenty of visitors, including locals like me who love to experience parks that are more than green spaces—parks that are spaces to explore history, aesthetics, gastronomy, politics, and life itself.
#2: NEW YORK CITY
In the most populous city in the country, 96 percent of residents live within a ten-minute walk of a park. That impressive access, along with high park spending per resident, propelled New York City to second place in 2013. “The latest ParkScore rankings are further evidence that New York City is the ‘Queen of Green,’” said New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. “Look out, Minneapolis. We may be number two, but not for long.”
Tyghe Trimble Cyclist, outdoor explorer
street corner start to stare. I’m lost, pedaling through the hilly, potholed streets on my bright orange road bike, looking for entry into Van Cortlandt Park. I finally find the turnoff on a small road that ends, Narnia-like, in a wall of trees. Here I eagerly off-road onto a narrow dirt path, trading the urban wilds for the forest. New York City parks are full of such revelations. Despite what you might imagine, the city has never fully divorced itself from na- ture. It’s still the place where
A
fter my third lap around the block, the locals on this Yonkers
woods and rock meet two rivers, an ocean, and a sound—578 miles of coastline, 168 species of trees, ample dunes, and acres of marshland. The park system encompasses and protects every kind of habitat, and concrete connects it all. This is why the perfect way to ex-
perience the parks is by bike. If you’re overly ambitious—as I often am—you can ride from the Bronx to Manhat- tan, Brooklyn, and Queens all in one 60-mile day. After Van Cortlandt, I cycle
through wooded Spuyten Duyvil Park, with its unparalleled views of the Hudson River. Spandex-serious cyclists usually opt for the Jersey side of the Hudson—specifically, River Road, a wooded, 18-mile stretch that offers a hilly workout. But Hudson River Park, on the New York side, has something for everyone. There’s free kayaking at Pier 96; the WWII- era USS Intrepid, which doubles as a military museum; a floating bar, the Frying Pan; and the golfing and bat- ting cages at Chelsea piers. At Battery Park, overlooking the Statue of Liberty, I turn east across
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