New hotels in Central Park, New York

Central Park covers 843 acres of Manhattan, from 59th Street to 110th Street and from Fifth Avenue to Central Park West: about two and a half miles long and half a mile wide. Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux won the design competition with their Greensward Plan in 1858, and the Central Park Conservancy, a nonprofit founded in 1980, now manages it under an agreement with the city. It is open every day from 6 am to 1 am and counts about 42 million visits a year.

None of the openings we follow in New York faces the park. The three described below all sit on the east side, one to two blocks from the park wall, and that distance is the honest meaning of "near Central Park".

The three hotels, and how far each is from the park

Aman New York is the closest, two blocks south of the park. It occupies the Crown Building, the 1921 Beaux-Arts tower at 730 Fifth Avenue on the corner of 57th Street, which held the first home of the Museum of Modern Art, and it opened there with 83 rooms on August 2, 2022. From the door it is a walk of two blocks up Fifth Avenue, past Bergdorf Goodman and the Plaza Hotel, to Grand Army Plaza and the Scholars' Gate at 60th Street. Rates start around $1,700. Its block belongs as much to the shopping street as to the park, and the hotel also appears in our Midtown Manhattan guide.

Further up, The Surrey, A Corinthia Hotel stands at 20 East 76th Street, on the corner of Madison Avenue, one avenue block east of Fifth and the park. The 1926 building ran for decades as the independent Surrey Hotel; Reuben Brothers bought it in 2020 and it reopened in September 2024 as Corinthia's first property in the United States. Martin Brudnizki handled the renovation: 100 rooms and suites, 14 residences, a Sisley spa, with Café Boulud and Casa Tua for dining. Rooms start around $640. The Inventors' Gate at 72nd Street is five minutes away on foot, the Frick Collection six blocks south, the Metropolitan Museum of Art about ten minutes north.

The third is not open yet. Plaza Athénée Nobu Hotel and Spa New York will reopen the former Hotel Plaza Athénée, closed since March 2020, at 37 East 64th Street between Madison and Park Avenues, a block and a half from Fifth. Thailand's Asset World Corp owns the 1927 building by George F. Pelham and Nobu Hospitality will run it, with 145 rooms, a Nobu restaurant, rooftop dining and a Japanese onsen, interiors by Rockwell Group. The partners still target 2026 but have published neither a firm date nor a recent construction update. Walk a block and a half west along 64th Street and the Central Park Zoo entrance is across Fifth Avenue.

Gates and subways

The low stone wall around the park is broken by named gates, a nineteenth-century idea of the park commissioners, who dedicated them to the trades and groups that built the city. Their names were carved into the walls only in 1999. Along 59th Street, the four southern entrances are the Scholars' Gate at Fifth Avenue, the Artists' Gate at Sixth, the Artisans' Gate at Seventh and the Merchants' Gate at Eighth, which is Columbus Circle. On the east side, the Inventors' Gate opens at 72nd Street, the Engineers' Gate at 90th Street is where most runners head for the Reservoir, and the Vanderbilt Gate leads into the Conservatory Garden. On the west side, the Women's Gate is at 72nd Street and the Strangers' Gate at 106th. The newest, the Gate of the Exonerated, was named in 2022.

The busiest station is 59 St–Columbus Circle (A, B, C, D and 1) at the southwest corner; 5 Av/59 St (N, R, W) serves the southeast corner and 57 St (F) is on Sixth Avenue. Along Central Park West the B and C stop at 72nd, 81st (for the American Museum of Natural History), 86th, 96th and 103rd Streets and at Cathedral Parkway–110th. The east side has no line under Fifth Avenue: the 4, 5 and 6 run under Lexington Avenue, three avenues away, with stops at 59th, 68th, 77th, 86th and 96th Streets among others. The 2 and 3 stop at 110 St–Central Park North.

The park drives have been closed to cars since 2018, so cyclists, runners and horse carriages share them. Buses cross the park on the sunken transverse roads, the M79 and the M86 among them. Walking the full length takes about 50 minutes at a steady pace; crossing from Fifth Avenue to Central Park West takes 10 to 15.

The southern end, 59th to 72nd Street

This is the part most visitors see, and the part closest to the three hotels. From the Scholars' Gate, a path drops to the Pond and the stone Gapstow Bridge, with the towers of Billionaires' Row behind. Wollman Rink, a few minutes north, runs skating in winter. The Central Park Zoo sits along Fifth Avenue from 64th Street. To the west, Sheep Meadow is the lawn New Yorkers use for sunbathing in summer.

The Mall, a long walk under elms with statues of writers along its southern stretch, leads to Bethesda Terrace at 72nd Street. Calvert Vaux and his assistant Jacob Wrey Mould designed it; Emma Stebbins's Angel of the Waters has stood on the fountain since 1873. Look up in the arcade below the terrace: the ceiling holds nearly 16,000 Minton encaustic tiles from Stoke-on-Trent, restored by the Conservancy between 2002 and 2007. East of the fountain, the Loeb Boathouse rents rowboats on the Lake in the warmer months, and Bow Bridge crosses it toward the Ramble. Strawberry Fields, the John Lennon memorial, is on the west side by the Women's Gate, across from the Dakota.

The middle, 72nd to 97th Street

The Ramble, 36 acres of winding paths and trees, is where birdwatchers go; more than 200 bird species have been recorded in the park. Belvedere Castle overlooks Turtle Pond and the Great Lawn, where summer concerts and pick-up games take place, and the Delacorte Theater, home of Shakespeare in the Park, sits beside it.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art backs onto the park at Fifth Avenue and 82nd Street; the American Museum of Natural History faces it from Central Park West at 79th. Above them, the Reservoir fills the park between 86th and 96th Streets. It was built between 1858 and 1862, taken out of the water supply in 1993 and renamed in 1994 for Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, who ran its track.

The northern end, 97th to 110th Street

Fewer visitors make it this far, which is the point. The Conservatory Garden, six acres between 104th and 106th Streets reached through the Vanderbilt Gate, is the park's formal garden: a French-style North Garden of tulips and chrysanthemums, an Italianate Center Garden with a wisteria pergola, and an English perennial South Garden. It opens at 8 am and closes between 5 pm in winter and 8 pm in early summer.

The North Woods and the Ravine come closest to the countryside Olmsted and Vaux had in mind. At the top, the Harlem Meer now has the Davis Center, between 106th and 108th Streets on the east side, with a pool in summer, an ice rink in winter and a turf field. Across 110th Street begins the neighborhood covered by our Harlem guide.

The streets around the park

Each edge has its own character. Central Park South, along 59th Street, is the hotel row of the old guard, from the Plaza (1907) at Fifth Avenue to Columbus Circle; it is also where the horse carriages wait.

Fifth Avenue is the museum side. The Frick Collection, at 1 East 70th Street, reopened on April 17, 2025 after a five-year renovation by Selldorf Architects that opened the mansion's second floor to visitors for the first time. Above the Met, Museum Mile continues with the Neue Galerie at 86th Street, the Guggenheim at 89th, the Cooper Hewitt at 91st and the Jewish Museum at 92nd. One avenue east, Madison Avenue between the 60s and the 70s is lined with boutiques and galleries; The Surrey and the future Plaza Athénée Nobu both sit on this grid.

Central Park West is residential: apartment buildings such as the Dakota at 72nd Street, the New-York Historical Society at 77th, and the natural history museum. Lincoln Center is a few blocks from Columbus Circle, west of Broadway between 62nd and 65th Streets. No hotel we follow has opened on the West Side of the park.

Which hotel for which kind of stay

For a trip organized around the museums, The Surrey puts the Frick and the Met within a ten-minute walk, along with the galleries of Madison Avenue.

When the park is one stop among the Midtown sights, the Aman is the better fit: Grand Army Plaza is two blocks north, Rockefeller Center and MoMA about ten minutes south.

Families with young children will want to be near the zoo and Wollman Rink, which points to the southeast corner; once open, the Plaza Athénée Nobu will be the closest of the three to the zoo gate.

Runners and early risers should know that the park opens at 6 am and that the Reservoir track is reached by the Engineers' Gate at 90th Street, about 15 minutes on foot from The Surrey.

Frequently asked questions

Is there a new hotel directly on Central Park?

No. None of the openings we follow faces the park on Central Park South, Fifth Avenue or Central Park West. The closest, Aman New York, is two blocks south of the park at Fifth Avenue and 57th Street.

Which new hotel is closest to the Metropolitan Museum of Art?

The Surrey, A Corinthia Hotel, at Madison Avenue and 76th Street, about six blocks south and one avenue east of the museum, a walk of roughly ten minutes.

What time does Central Park open and close?

6 am to 1 am, every day of the year. The Conservatory Garden keeps shorter hours, from 8 am to between 5 pm and 8 pm depending on the month.

How long does it take to walk the length of Central Park?

About 50 minutes at a steady pace for the two and a half miles from 59th to 110th Street. Most visitors split it: the southern end on one day, the Reservoir and the north on another.

When does the Plaza Athénée Nobu open?

No firm date yet. The owners still target 2026, but neither Asset World Corp nor Nobu Hospitality has published an opening date or a recent construction update.