From my previous review, noticed recently during a big snowstorm that I omitted most winter-related…read moreactivities one can do in Central Park! These include, though aren't limited to: Sledding, cross country skiing, making all manner of snowmen/forts/snowballs/snow angels, snow tubing, snow plowing and shoveling the streets and walkways, defrosting your fingers and toes, admiring the winter scenery. One of the best things about CP is that it's open daily, year-round. On one very very cold Saturday afternoon when we got about a foot of snow, I ventured out in sub-freezing temperatures, and was surprised by how many people (thousands!) were playing in the snow. I had never seen CP so crowded, not even on warm sunny days! Not only families with children, it seemed everyone healthy and active enough to participate was out and about. How many people had sleds too!* That being said, one suitable aspect of CP is the many hilly areas so if you had a sled, you were in luck, with much fun to be had. On your next snow day, GO PLAY! *Considering it hadn't snowed more than a few inches annually the past few years I wasn't sure where people either had space to store, or how they were able to procure sleds at such short notice.

I spent the day - starting at 9:00 AM and finishing at 5:45 PM doing a full loop of Central Park -…read morestopping and seeing things along the way. I was surprised it was hilly. There are fields, lakes, tree-lined areas, waterfalls, a conservancy garden, playgrounds, places to rent boats, and even a tribute to John Lennon.

FDR park is a spacious 960 acre park. This open park has nice trails for long walks, jogging, and…read morebicycling. There are basketball courts, fields for playing soccer or softball, and a children's playground. I could not believe the many areas for barbecuing with plenty of picnic tables, charcoal grills, and some areas even had volleyball nets,. Perfect for cookouts, and nice pavilions for events. There is also a beautiful scenic lake where you can rent row boats, and fish. It is also home to the largest pool of all New York State parks that can accommodate 3,500 people.

Came here for the pool, really nice when it's not crowded. Clean and friendly staff! Entrance fee…read moreis $3 per person and you can spend a whole day here!

Central Park of Morris County is located on what was once Greystone Mental Health Facility. After…read moreit was demolished in the early 2000's, it was reconstructed in 2008 as a county park. Today the park is a large athletic complex featuring 2 inline hockey rinks, a 2.5K cross country course. 2 sand vollyball courts, 1 artificial turf softball field, an 18 Hole Disc Golf Course, 4 artificial soccer fields. walking paths through meadows & wooded areas, a kickball field, a playground area designed for 5-12 year olds. The playground area has a lot of different apparatus, rubber ground cover and benches. Fully equiped reatrooms can be found in lot 4. Lastly, the park has a dog park. The dog park has a section for small dogs, 2 sections for large dogs, and short wooded area with a path. The dog park is completely fenced in, well maintained, clean and spacious. There are obstacle courses, as well. The drawback is the grass and dirt areas after wet weather. Additionally, there are no trash containers in the fenced in areas. Bring water for your dog

This review is for the playground only. Fairly large with lots of options and plenty of equipment…read more Swings, slides, ramps, mechanical spinning toys, tables and benches, climbing apparatus, musical instruments, etc. The ground is nice and soft rubber, and there is ample space for parents and siblings including covered benches to protect from the sun. Add a parent I really appreciated that it wasn't too crowded on a Sunday morning and all of the children there were patient and well behaved. Since it's a bit further away we won't be there daily but will certainly make the 20 minute trip again!

Solid hiking here. We went during a beautiful day and enjoyed getting lost on the trails for an…read morehour or so. The mansion is closed for renovations, but there was more than enough to enjoy without it.

After almost two years living in Norwalk, I finally discovered this shady oasis from All Trails…read morewhen dog sitting. The trail system is super well maintained and an easy loop to follow. There are multiple green spaces and designated dog areas around the mansion. Cranbury park is super shady and a quiet place to unwind from city noise.

Recently, I wrote a review for Harry Dunham Park, which is also in Basking Ridge, about a mile or 2…read moredown the road from here. That park is actually closer to where I live, but this is where I prefer to come. I discovered it a few years ago. I always thought it was in Warren, but I guess technically it's Basking Ridge. My hours were somewhat wacky. In the past, back in the day, I had jogged at the high school track...even the local cemetery...but, given my increasingly bizarre hours, that wasn't really practical anymore. This park was a place where I could run early in the morning, or in the evening. Maybe it's just a personal preference, but I really like this place. It doesn't have some of the amenities that Harry Dunham has, but I think I can live without disc golf, if you wanna know the truth... I can't really tell how large the park is--- if you walk around the circumference of it, I'd guess it's approximately 2 miles? It has several athletic fields; some are obviously for baseball, the larger ones in the upper portion of the park look like they were designed for soccer (Pingry School is just up the road from the park, and I know the Italian Championship Soccer Team stayed there some years ago to practice...I wouldn't have known that...I'm as interested in soccer as I am in disc golf...but an Italian-born co-worker was a soccer enthusiast, and he told me). There's ample parking in the upper portion parallel to Liberty Corner Road, but I prefer coming down past a building used by the road department, where there's another parking lot-- this one is smaller but usually less crowded (unless it's a spring/summer evening and the athletic fields are being used by local sports teams, adult and juvenile). I'm not much of a jogger anymore, but I'll start with a jog, run as far on the path as I can before I become winded, walk some, jog a little more, walk even more, jog, pause to dry heave in the bushes, stagger walk until I recover, walk the rest of the way shakily, cautiously back to my car. It's ok. At least I'm still doing SOMETHING healthy, and the surrounding countryside is gorgeous (whatever season it is, although you have to watch the ice on the paths in the winter); it's always refreshing and restorative, whether I'm in shape or not. There are 2 small buildings at opposite ends of the park, that look like they have water fountains, and I guess have bathrooms as well (I haven't had to avail myself of them, so I can't really be sure). There are twisting paths that branch off from the park and wend their way through the woods, and I always like to take advantage of these. One time, I went off on a path that could have been a deer path, which twisted its way down a steep hillside, and came to a gurgling stream. Not exactly the Rocky Mountains, but I was impressed. Not sure where the stream leads (I've lived in Somerset County since I was in my teens, but I guess I'm still a Passaic County city boy at heart), but one day soon I'm going to have to spend more time and follow it along towards wherever it leads (Bedminster?). It's beautiful, tranquil, and occasionally even exhilarating, abundant with natural grandeur and loveliness. If there's such a thing as "God's Country," this could qualify. If there's a down side, it can get too crowded, especially on spring/summer evenings, when the sports teams and their "fans" monopolize the parking lot and playing fields. And there are a'holes who walk their dogs, let the dogs shite on the walking paths, and don't bother cleaning up. But you can't hold the park responsible for that. There are a'holes everywhere, sad to say. Even in bucolic, beautiful Somerset County.

Mountain Park offers walkers well-maintained paths with gorgeous views of New Jersey's rolling…read morehills and plants. There are a few paths you can take; some are more wooded than others. Even when the park is more crowded at peak times or during sporting events, there is enough space for everyone to enjoy and have some privacy while walking.

Fantastic local playground, situated down off Rhinecliff Rd and minutes from the center of town…read more Fenced in area with expansive playground area with plenty of open space for children 5-12 to run around. Benches surround the playground with an open pavilion nearby with picnic tables and a parking lot area.

This is a nice easy set of trails, flat or gentle hills. The forest and grassland areas are quite…read morenice. For the most part, the trails are well maintained, although I do think the trail markings/signage could be clearer. I started at the kiosk trail head and the first turnoff for the trail can be easy to miss(in fact, I did.) The initial part of the trail is nice dark gravel, but it veers into a field where the trail is just a mown path and the sign for the turnoff is an unassuming post with orange and green squares on it tucked back into the growth. Also at one point off the blue loop, I ended up in a strange area with farm equipment with a sign posted about private property. So I turned back to the loop. I never even saw how to get to the white or red trails. So what I saw was nice but I'd like to come back and try to find what I missed. Maybe I'm just hopelessly directionally challenged. I did take a picture of the map at the trailhead but still found parts confusing. I saw a fox following the paths several times, which was pretty exciting:) There was a pool, playground and community garden but I didn't really check those out.

At the risk of sounding arrogant, I'm used to larger parks-- parks that offer baseball, soccer, and…read morefootball fields, hiking and running trails, hockey rinks, picnic tables, outdoor grills, facilities for large groups to gather indoors, water fountains, bathrooms, ample parking lots, even...disc golf. Sunset Memorial Park is miniscule in comparison to them, and it offers...well, benches to sit down on and enjoy the scenery that presents itself. Just to be clear, I don't mean that as a dig. I like the park, although I've never spent a lot of time in it. And...at the risk of belaboring my life story...I had virtually no familiarity with Rutherford at all...its parks or anything else about it...until my birth mother located me (with the somewhat reluctant assistance of the Lutheran Agency through which I had been adopted many moons earlier) and reached out approximately 20 years ago. At that time, my maternal grandmother resided not far from where Sunset Memorial Park is located. This is the area where my birth mother spent her teenage years (she spent her childhood years in Hoboken). It's where I first met my genetic relatives, who were...thankfully...warm and welcoming. I never felt I was replacing the family I was raised with...they were, and always will be, my family...but I have expanded that family, and consider my relatives...both genetic and adopted...family. My late grandmother loved this park and would come here often up until her final years, when her son (my uncle) moved her down to North Carolina and out of the old family residence. I've only actually walked in the park once or twice, and found it pleasant enough, but I pass here often when driving to visit my birth mother. She tells a story of how her father, a decent guy by all accounts, but a bit of the tyrannical puritan (he died years before my reunion with my genetic family took place, and I unfortunately was never able to meet him, but I think, if I can play the dime store psychiatrist about someone whose genes I carry but never actually encountered face to face, he was probably somewhat conflicted emotionally and perhaps psychologically; his father's family were wealthy Protestants originally from New Hampshire, which certainly clashed...religiously and culturally...with his mother's Brooklyn working-class Irish Catholicism; he insisted his children be raised as Congregationalists, but when he had had a few beers and was feeling no pain, he was not adverse to singing "Danny Boy" and other Irish classics, often in the company of his maternal Irish relatives, whom he revered), came upon a teenaged couple "making out" in the park and brusquely told them to move on and to take it somewhere else. My birth mother was mortified and embarrassed. (It's ironic, perhaps, that I was "conceived" in a house just a stone's throw from the park and born to teenagers who were also "making out.") In addition to being small, the park is sort of on a tilt, so when you walk around it, you're almost walking at an angle. It's well cared for and landscaped with thorough professionalism (U.S. Veterans have worked together to revitalize it), and it does have more than enough benches for sitting. Is there much to see from those benches? Well...Rutherford is a nice Bergen County town. It seems to have aged well. The houses surrounding the park are not new, but they're well kept, and there are abundant trees in the vicinity (Rutherford is often referred to as "the borough of trees"). Of course, not far distant, across the polluted Passaic River (with numerous homeless people living on its banks), is the grimy, often dangerous, always depressing city of Passaic. As invariably happens in life, grim reality is never far off from intruding upon whatever peace and restorative tranquility we can temporarily find for ourselves. But, for all that, it's still a nice place to sit, reflect, meditate, and contemplate life in all its ramifications and complexities. To relax, maybe have a conversation with a friend, or friends. It's definitely an old park (according to a marker set up near its perimeter, it was established in 1905 on land donated by Henry Jackson, whoever he was), so it has that certain timeless quality and sense of history about it. Just don't expect to play any disc golf while you're here.

The story goes that Rutherford landowener Henry R. Jackson use to enjoy watching the sunset from…read morethis rolling hill area of his land.  He later donated the plot of  land to the town with the cavit that it would remain as an undeveloped recreatiomn area.   110 Years later on street named after Jackson sits the small park which also serves a memmorial to WWI, and WWII local servicemen, a  memmorial  is here dedicated to their memory and sacrifice. Other than that hardly anyone is seen at this park, and due to development across the Passaic River those sunset are not the same as they where in Jackson's time.