John Jay Park
John Jay Park is a scenic neighborhood park overlooking the East River and Roosevelt Island, offering a variety of amenities including an open-air Olympic pool, basketball and tennis courts, a children’s playground, picnic areas, and workout equipment. The park is wheelchair accessible at the entrance and features onsite parking. It provides a relaxing atmosphere with beautiful views and is popular for sports, picnics, and family activities. Dogs are allowed, though off-leash behavior is noted as an issue by some visitors. The park closes at 10pm and includes facilities like public restrooms and trash bins.
Reviews
Great neighborhood park with lots to offer including racket ball courts, basketball hoops, there are markings for the tennis court but the net is improvised, an open air Olympic pool with a separate dive pool (open memorial day to labor day), a few pieces of workout equipment like a sit-up bench plus a big children’s playground. All for free!
Update 6/28/21 the pool is open! You must bring a lock for the lockers and wear only white t-shirts/tops, otherwise they won’t let you in.
Update 6/21/22 the pool is being filled today after some renovations and will reopen on 6/28. Additionally, they have redone the gardens and benches by the pool in the north-east corner with plenty of places to picnic. The only downside about this park is the number of people who have their dogs off-leash preventing use by other dogs who are in training.
The tennis court has been repainted and a new net installed.
John Jay Park is overlooking the east river by FDR drive. It has a beautiful scenery view of boats cruising by on the east river. Another beautiful view from the park is Roosevelt Island.The park is nice and relaxing.
Nice place, bun unfortunately WC for women doesn’t work
A nice little gem of the neighborhood. There’s a bunch of activities like a pool and courts for sports like basketball. There’s a playground if you have kids. As the weather gets nicer, this is a place I love to stop by.
Very cool and chill place. Went here when me and my bf were pretty high, had amazing conversations with a beautiful view of the driveway and Roosevelt island. We were observing the intimidating black gate with its sharp spikes. I remembered a story when one of my former classmates had his leg become a kebab on a similar spike when he was going over the same gate when escaping from school. We took a nice photo there to commemorate the evening and the stunning view. On our way out, we discovered that this exact gate at the entrance was locked, no other exit was available at 11pm. I believe the responsible person didn’t check if anyone was still in there. FYI, the park closes at 10.00pm. If you stay later, you are at risk of getting kebabed. So, being sky high and scared, we decided to play Spiderman. My bf literally jumped over the gate when I got stuck on top. The trash bins came to my rescue, I jumped on one of them, and then I was beautifully taken down from it.
Since that romantic moment, we broke up, and now he is my ex. Despite the fact that we were closed inside and had to figure it out, I give this park 5 stars because of its cozy vibe and the beautiful memories that warm me up until today 🧡