Parks in New York City with splash pads

Central Park

Central Park has seventeen separate spray-shower locations, more than any other park in the city, so on a hot day you are rarely far from one. Most sit inside the park's 21 official playgrounds, which means climbing equipment, benches and shade are usually right there too. It is also the most visited park on this list, with over 25 million guests a year, so expect company on a July afternoon and pick a playground away from the main paths if you want room.

Washington Square Park

Three spray-shower spots sit in the playgrounds around the edge of this Greenwich Village square, along with the famous central fountain that everyone sits around in summer. At under ten acres it is a stop rather than a day out, and it is one of the busiest, noisiest public spaces in the city: buskers, chess players and NYU students all year. Restrooms, food and dog runs are all on site, which helps when you are out with small children.

Thomas Jefferson Park

An East Harlem park set up for a whole day with kids: a big playground with swings and slides, a spray shower, an outdoor pool that opens for the summer, and barbecue grills and picnic tables. NYC Parks describes it as only a few blocks long but packed to the brim with things to do, and there is a recreation center on the grounds with an afterschool program. Just one spray-shower location, so the pool is the better bet on the hottest afternoons.

Morningside Park

A narrow strip that runs thirteen blocks along the cliff between Harlem and Morningside Heights, with four spray-shower spots and multiple playgrounds clustered at the bottom of the hillside. There is a cascading waterfall and pond to look at, ballfields across from it, and a farmers market on Saturdays. The slope is the thing to plan around: the playgrounds are at the low end, so come in from Morningside Avenue rather than the heights if you have a stroller.

Highbridge Park

Four spray-shower locations spread through a long, cliffside Washington Heights park, alongside several playgrounds and ballfields and the Highbridge pool and recreation center, running since 1936. Older kids get the city's first mountain biking course and a well-regarded skate park in the same visit. The park is stretched thin along the ridge above the Harlem River, so it pays to know which entrance is closest to the playground you want.

Prospect Park

Brooklyn's flagship park, designed by Olmsted and Vaux, with five spray-shower locations spread across its playgrounds. Around them are a zoo, a carousel, the first urban Audubon Center in the country, a watercourse of manmade wetlands and the bulk of Brooklyn's remaining native forest, so a sprinkler stop can turn into a whole day. It takes about eight million visitors a year, and at 526 acres the walk from the nearest subway to the water can be a long one.

Herbert Von King Park

Three spray-shower spots in under eight acres, which is the highest concentration of water on this list. One of the oldest parks in Brooklyn, laid out from a design submitted by Olmsted and Vaux and now the town square of Bedford-Stuyvesant, built around a cultural arts center and an outdoor amphitheater that hosts free concerts. Playgrounds, restrooms, fitness equipment and barbecue areas are all on the grounds.

Fort Greene Park

Two spray-shower locations in a hilly 30-acre park that was a Revolutionary War fort before Olmsted and Vaux redesigned it in the 1860s. Playgrounds, basketball and tennis courts, restrooms and a nature center sit around the slopes, with the Prison Ship Martyrs Monument at the summit. The hills are the character of the place and also the catch: lovely for a picnic, hard work with a stroller.

McCarren Park

The shared backyard of Greenpoint and Williamsburg: 36 acres of ballfields and courts with one spray-shower spot and the McCarren Park pool and play center for a proper swim. NYC Parks calls it 35 acres of bustling activity, which is fair on a summer weekend when nearly every field is in use. With a single sprinkler location, treat this as a pool trip that happens to have a sprinkler rather than the other way round.

Brooklyn Bridge Park

The Pier 6 playgrounds hold the Water Lab, a purpose-built water-play area sitting next to Slide Mountain, Sandbox Village and Swing Valley, and it is the best-known place in Brooklyn to get a small child thoroughly soaked. The park says the Water Lab runs daily from 10am to 7pm once daily temperatures are consistently in the 80s, and shuts in heavy rain or thunderstorms. Entry is free, there are restrooms at Pier 6 and several other piers, and the harbour views are why the adults do not mind waiting. Parking is very limited, so plan on the subway or the ferry.

Domino Park

A Williamsburg waterfront park on the site of the old Domino Sugar Refinery, with a fountain built for children: eighty-eight individually programmed water jets and lights, open daily from May through October. A pyramid of wooden seating steps reclaimed from the refinery looks straight down on it, so you can watch from the shade, and the refinery-themed playground and the misting Fog Bridge are a few steps away. The park runs 6am to 11pm daily. It is small, and it is one of the most photographed parks in Brooklyn, so it fills up on hot weekends.

Flushing Meadows Corona Park

Six spray-shower locations, the most of any park outside Manhattan, spread over the old World's Fair grounds. The rest of the day fills itself: the Unisphere, lakes and trails you can walk, bike or kayak, cricket and soccer fields, an aquatics centre and ice rink, and several museums. At 870 acres it is not a park you wander into hoping to find water, so pick your playground and your parking before you go.

Forest Park

Six spray-shower locations across a 500-acre park that is really two places. The western end is the active half, with playgrounds, softball, tennis, bocce, handball and a par-67 golf course modelled on Scottish links. The eastern end is 165 acres of woods on knob-and-kettle terrain, with hiking trails and bridle paths and horses for hire from a private stable. Sprinklers first, then a proper forest walk, is an easy day here.

Astoria Park

Best known for the oldest and largest outdoor pool in the city, Astoria Park also has a spray shower, playgrounds, a running track, tennis and bocce courts and a skate park, all on the East River between the Triborough and Hell Gate bridges. The views along the shoreline benches are the reason people sit here year round. Only one spray-shower location for 60 acres, so on the hottest days the pool does the heavy lifting.

Bronx Park

Six spray-shower locations, the most of any park in the Bronx, in the 718 acres that also hold the Bronx Zoo and the New York Botanical Garden. Outside those two, the park itself is playgrounds, ballfields, courts, a skate park and a kayak launch, plus a two-mile stretch of the Bronx River running through a wooded gorge of red maple swamp and floodplain forest. Good for a day that mixes water, a playground and a river walk.

Williamsbridge Oval

Five spray-shower locations in under twenty acres, which for its size is the most water of any park here. The Norwood park sits in a bowl ringed by Reservoir Oval East, with a recreation centre on the rim and a running track, playgrounds, ballfields, pickleball and tennis courts inside. Because it is laid out around a single basin, it is one of the easier parks to sit in and still keep an eye on children.

Pelham Bay Park

The largest park in New York City, more than three times the size of Central Park, with four spray-shower locations scattered among its playgrounds. It also has Orchard Beach, thirteen miles of saltwater shoreline on Long Island Sound, bridle paths, hiking trails, two golf courses and the Bartow-Pell Mansion. At 2,771 acres the distances are real, so look up which playground you are heading for before you set out.

Crotona Park

Three spray-shower locations and eleven playgrounds, plus the largest pool in the Bronx at 300 feet, make this one of the strongest hot-day parks in the borough. There is also a 3.3-acre lake with turtles and ducks, 28 tree species, twenty hard tennis courts and five baseball diamonds across its 127 acres. Between the sprinklers, the playgrounds and the pool you can spend a whole Saturday without leaving.

Clove Lakes Park

One spray-shower location sits in the active corner of this Forever Wild park, next to playgrounds, baseball diamonds, a soccer field and a basketball court. The rest is lakes and ponds you can take a paddleboat out on, serpentine rock outcrops and a three-hundred-year-old tulip tree, the largest living thing on Staten Island. With a single sprinkler across 193 acres, treat the water as a bonus on a walk rather than the reason to come.

Wolfe's Pond Park

Two spray-shower locations, a beach on Raritan Bay, a playground, restrooms and hiking trails through a wildlife and plant preserve, all in one of Staten Island's largest parks. The mix is the appeal: sprinkler, sand and woods on a single 302-acre trip. It sits at the south end of the island, so for most of the city it is a drive or a long ride rather than a spur-of-the-moment stop.

Silver Lake Park

Laid out a century ago as Staten Island's answer to Central Park and Prospect Park, Silver Lake now covers 206 acres around a lake that once supplied the city's Catskill water system. One spray-shower location, a playground, baseball fields, restrooms and an 18-hole golf course. It is quieter than the flagship parks, which is the point, but with a single sprinkler it is a neighbourhood cool-off rather than a water destination.