Staten Island Parks: The Borough Guide

Staten Island isn't a single park — it's a whole borough most visitors skip, and that's the mistake. Once you're across the harbor on the free ferry, you're in a place with more connected green space than almost anywhere else in the five boroughs: a nearly 2,800-acre woodland Greenbelt running through the island's spine, a landmarked 19th-century sailors' home turned botanical garden, the southernmost point in New York State, and a former landfill being reborn as a park more than twice the size of Central Park. None of it gets the crowds Manhattan's parks do. That's the whole draw.

The Staten Island Greenbelt

The Greenbelt is close to 2,800 acres of connected woodland, wetland and parkland running through the middle of the island — one of the largest stretches of undeveloped land left in New York City. Four color-blazed trails cut through it, off-limits to bikes and cars; the Blue Trail is the longest, running roughly 12 miles across the island end to end. Inside the Greenbelt, High Rock Park holds five ponds and a stretch of wetland worth slowing down for, and off the Yellow Trail near Rockland Avenue you can climb Paulo's Peak — a 200-foot hill long known as Moses' Mountain, officially renamed in 2022 to honor longtime Staten Island Parks Commissioner Thomas Paulo — for one of the better views on Staten Island, tree cover included.

Snug Harbor Cultural Center & Botanical Garden

Snug Harbor started as a retirement home for sailors, funded by a bequest from Captain Robert Richard Randall after his death in 1801. The oldest of its buildings opened in 1833, and the row of five Greek Revival structures facing the water — added between 1830 and 1880 — is now a National Historic Landmark District, one of the largest collections of that architecture anywhere in the country. Since 1976 the 83-acre grounds have run as a cultural center and botanical garden, free to walk dawn to dusk every day. Inside, the New York Chinese Scholar's Garden is a small ticketed section built by artisans from Suzhou, China — worth the separate admission. Staten Island residents get one free day a month; the exact day is published on snug-harbor.org, so check there rather than trusting a date from a guide.

Clove Lakes Park

Clove Lakes Park covers about 198 acres around three connected lakes — Clove Lake, Martling Lake and Brooks Lake — with roughly three miles of trails through the surrounding woodland, some paved and stroller-friendly, some rougher gravel. It's home to Staten Island's largest living thing, a tulip tree estimated at three hundred years old, and an outdoor ice rink that runs through the winter. A lakeside restaurant and the borough's Parks Department headquarters both sit on the grounds too.

FDR Boardwalk at South Beach

The Franklin D. Roosevelt Boardwalk runs along the East Shore at South Beach, facing out onto Lower New York Bay — a straightforward, uncrowded stretch for a walk, run or bike ride with open water views the whole way. It's a different kind of waterfront than anything in Manhattan: wide sky, very little foot traffic, and the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge visible off in the distance.

Great Kills Park

Part of Gateway National Recreation Area and run by the National Park Service rather than the city, Great Kills Park covers about 523 acres of Staten Island's southeastern shore. It has the borough's main swimming beach, a multi-use path for biking or walking, fishing spots, and a marina. About 282 of those acres — roughly half the park — have been fenced off and closed to the public since radiological contamination (radium-226) was found there in 2005; cleanup is still ongoing, and NPS hasn't set a reopening date for that section. The beach, marina, Crooke's Point, and the main paths remain open. Lifeguard hours have shifted in recent seasons, so check nps.gov/gate before you plan a swim around it.

Conference House Park

At the very southern tip of the island, in Tottenville, Conference House Park holds Ward's Point — the southernmost point in New York State — and the Conference House itself, a stone manor built in 1680. In September 1776, Continental Congress delegates including Benjamin Franklin met British commanders here for a peace conference that went nowhere, three months into the Revolutionary War. The 265-acre park around the house has hiking and biking trails, a visitors center and sweeping views of Raritan Bay — genuinely one of the more overlooked historic sites in the entire city.

Freshkills Park — the landfill becoming a park

This is the story worth knowing before you write off Staten Island: Fresh Kills opened as a landfill in 1948 and, by the mid-1950s, had become the largest landfill on Earth, taking in New York City's household garbage for over fifty years before closing in 2001. What's happening on that site now is the opposite of a horror story — roughly 2,200 acres, more than twice the size of Central Park, are being engineered and planted into Freshkills Park, opening to the public in phases as the reclaimed mounds stabilize. It won't be finished for years yet, but the sections already open give you a preview of what will eventually be the largest park built in New York City since the 19th century.

Getting around Staten Island

Everything starts with the Staten Island Ferry — free, 24 hours, a 25-minute ride from Manhattan's Battery Park with a Statue of Liberty view thrown in for nothing. From St. George Terminal on the Staten Island side, the Staten Island Railway runs the length of the island down to Tottenville, useful for Conference House Park at the southern end. Everything else is a bus ride: S40 gets you from St. George to Snug Harbor in about ten minutes; S62, S53 and S66 serve Clove Lakes Park; S51/S52/S53 run past the FDR Boardwalk at South Beach; S78 and S79 SBS reach Great Kills Park; and S59 or S78 get you down to Conference House Park in Tottenville. None of this is Manhattan-fast, but none of it needs a car either.

Why spend a day on Staten Island

The honest pitch: nowhere else in New York City gives you this much connected green space without a crowd standing in it. You won't find the density of things-to-do that Central Park or Prospect Park pack in, and that's the point — a day here is woodland trails, a genuinely good botanical garden, real Revolutionary War history and a harbor view, all reached on a boat ride that doesn't cost anything. If you've already done the greatest hits everywhere else, this is where you go next.

Frequently asked questions about Staten Island's parks