St. Catherine’s Park

It’s a cute place with a playground, some benches, and picnic tables. It’s fenced in with a few separate entrances. It’s great if you like kids, because they’re literally crawling everywhere. If you don’t, I recommend having lunch somewhere else. :-)
Across from Memorial Sloan Kettering, it’s a convenient place for employees to have lunch outside. For an urban recreational area, it’s one of the larger ones I’ve seen on the UES.

This park is the one of the worst places your child can go! Today, half naked (no shirt) 4 man and one woman «exercising» right next to children and ON the play structure. One little girl hanging on the play structure, up side down and one-​man which he wasn’t her dad, without any child with him, that mans hand was touching her hand. I don’t know who was taking care of that little girl but child looked annoyed by a stranger touching her. One nanny try to say something to one of the man and he started to yell at her immediately, «I work around here, this park is not just for children! blah blah blah». As a mom i get annoyed very much and I told him «no you are wrong this is children’s play ground and if you don’t have child you are not even allow to be on the play structure» The man try to yell at me too and i cut him off. And one other man started to stare at me and my child to intimidate me. When i said something, that woman exercising next to them started to yell at me. Which she was a nanny and not watching the kid she was responsible from, but exercising vigorously and flirting with the half naked guys. She told me that i was harassing them wooww adults with no children taking over children’s play structure touching some little children and some one say something harassing them. i wonder is that child’s parents know what their nanny doing with their child. I should have call the police! There were some very nice nannies at the park they came up to me and told me that, i was doing the right thing, and they knew who that woman was. Also i wonder if that nanny have any idea, how many child molesters and kidnappers around? And also winter time lots of high school kids go there and smoke things, right next to children and babies and police comes to park time to time. This park is very very dangerous place if you care about your child, do not take them there! And pls check on your nannies time to time. That woman today at the park literally let some strangers touch the kid on her care.
Tell your nannies to take your children to the John Jay park, very close, so much nicer and safer!

Happy days!

I come here to enjoy my lunch and the weather on warm days. There is a good amount of seating available but it will get pretty crowded during the normal lunch hour. Also, the park is usually busy with nannies and children throughout the day so the noise level is always pretty high.

Beautiful park for the UES nannies to chill and let the kids run themselves into a nap. There’s a giant jungle gym in the middle crawling with screaming children. Plenty of benches and picnic tables to enjoy lunch on a sunny day. Even though its loud and you’re always at risk for being run over by a gang of 5 year olds on scooters, its a nice respite from the hospital. Yay for spring!

Central Park it’s not. And there aren’t too many trees. But there are benches, swings, and elephant sprinklers. When I walk by on cold, cloudy days like today, I appreciate all that much more my summer lunches spent sitting on a bench with a coworker here, sun on my shoulders, and no gloves, hats, scarves, coats, and all that other crap to worry about. Ok, winter, you can leave now.
TYC 9

While St. Catherine’s is relatively a block of green amongst the towering hospitals, it doesn’t really qualify as a relaxing haven. The noise from ambulances and cars is almost muffled by that of young children and babies brought to the park by their parents/​guardians! There is a decent sized playground, some chess tables and benches and a «sports court» that is usually filled with kids from the high school on the same block!
Good place to sit and have your sandwich if you’re in the area but no place to travel to from any other district.

This park is a melting pot of Upper East Side mothers, Upper East Side nannies, toe-​headed children in Ralph Lauren and Crewcut outfits, and NYP and MSKCC employees. The playground is vast, the benches are innumerable, and I have a nice place to eat my lunch on warm sunny days.
This has been «my spot» for three years now and I don’t know what I’d do if I couldn’t escape here for my lunch hour when the whether is nice.