Bryant Park is a 9.603 acre (39,000 m²) privately managed public park located in the
New York City borough of
Manhattan. It is located between Fifth and Sixth Avenues and between 40th and 42nd Streets in Midtown Manhattan. Although technically the main building of the
New York Public Library is located within the park, effectively it forms the park's functional eastern boundary, making Sixth Avenue the park's primary entrance. Although part of the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, Bryant Park is managed by a private not-for-profit corporation, the Bryant Park Corporation. The park is cited as a model for the success of public-private partnerships.
Bryant Park Today:
Bryant Park is one of the signature examples of New York City's revival in the 1990s. With a minimum of crime, the park is filled with office workers on sunny weekdays, city visitors on the weekends, and revelers during the holidays. Daily attendance counts often exceed 800 people per acre, making it the most densely occupied urban park in the
World. In 1995, an article about midtown office workers who had found the newly reopened park a good place to go to after work bore the headline "Town Square of Midtown. In the summer of 2002, the park launched the free Bryant Park Wireless Network, making the park the first in New York City to offer free Wi-Fi access to visitors. Improvements in 2008 significantly increased the number of users who could log-on at a given time.
Lawn:
One of the park's most impressive features is a large lawn that is the longest expanse of grass in Manhattan south of
Central Park. Besides serving as a "lunchroom" for midtown office workers and a place of respite for tired pedestrians, the lawn also serves as the seating area for some of the park's major events, such as the HBO/Bryant Park Summer Film Festival.
Programming:
Numerous events are hosted on the Great Lawn at Bryant Park. The Bryant Park Summer Film Festival, begun in the early nineties and now sponsored by HBO, brings a very large crowd into the park on Monday evenings during the summer. Various free musical performances are sponsored by corporations during the warm weather months, including Broadway in Bryant Park, sponsored by Clear Channel Communications and featuring performers from current Broadway musicals, the Music at 5 series, and, starting in 2008, Bank of America Presents New York Now, a series featuring concerts by five of New York's classical music organizations.
