Walks in Central Park: Find Azalea Pond, and Meet This Duck

This recommended self-guided walk, an adventure resplendent in the pastels of the season, is more like a quest. The task: Wander into The Ramble in Central Park, the woody area north of The Lake, and locate Azalea Pond. It's not necessarily easy. While The Ramble generally poses challenges for navigation, the pond itself is relatively small. Finding it requires a reliance on intuition and the recognition of the sound of gurgling waters, but additional visual clues are just now emerging, namely the blossoming of pink azaleas on the south side of the pond.

Once there, meet this duck. He seems friendly and curious, the sort of creature that serves as an all-knowing guide in a mythical tale.

"What nice feet you have!"
A most curious duck at Azalea Pond in The Ramble

The initial motivation for this particular walk was to check out the status of the azaleas at the pond, to see if the bushes had advanced into an early blooming stage in this unusually warm early season. Azalea blossoms come and go so quickly, it's important to keep watch. Down south, at the Masters Golf Tournament in Augusta, Georgia, for example, many of the famous azaleas along the course have already finished blooming. Here in the city, azaleas typically peak a few weeks later during the first week in May.

The suggested way to Azalea Pond, noted on the map that follows the post, encompasses well-known landmarks of Central Park. The walk begins just north of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and winds past the Obelisk (Cleopatra's Needle) and near the Great Lawn, freshly mowed for the first time this season.

The walk begins on a path just north of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
on the east side of Central Park.

Light green new leaves and blooming trees in Central Park

Robins search for worms under the newly-mowed grass of the Great Lawn.

To the south, Belvedere Castle comes into view across Turtle Pond. Around and behind the Delacorte Theatre, rustic fences mark the way into the Shakespeare Garden, particularly abundant in flowering bulbs.

Turtle Pond and Belvedere Castle

In the Shakespeare Garden

At the southeast corner of West Drive and the 79th Street Transverse, look for the signs marking the path to the Ramble. This is just one way to get there, by the way. One path then gives way to multiple and increasingly bucolic trails, each posing an option for further exploration. Somewhere in here is Azalea Pond. You have to find it.

The way to The Ramble

Azalea Pond. The Ramble. Central Park.

Here we go. Azalea blooms are beginning to open!

The azaleas on the south side of the pond are just beginning.

And here he is, your new best friend. The duck at Azalea Pond is ready to answer your questions.

"What is your quest?"

This quest is accomplished. The azaleas are ready to bloom, and a new friendship is made. Congratulations!

From here, we just have a few more meandering trails to the busier and more formal areas of the park, including the Loeb Boathouse, Bethesda Terrace, and The Mall. Sheep Meadow, with its great green lawn and open views of the city, provides a good ending for the walk.

at the water's edge. The Lake, Central Park.

The Mall, Central Park.

Sheep Meadow.
Hello, New York City.

You may find it difficult not to turn around. The sound of quacking tends to linger, and the soft patter of little webbed feet.

Spring in the Sheep Meadow

A happy holiday weekend to all.

View The Way to Azalea Pond in a larger map

For more on the history of The Ramble, read this post from May 2010.

Images by Walking Off the Big Apple from Thursday, April 5, 2012. See all 24 pictures from the walk in this slideshow on Flickr WOTBA.

Comments

25 Radical Things to Do in Greenwich Village

A list of 25 things to Do in Greenwich Village with history of protest, old cafes, and signs of change. Hipstamatic iPhone images of contemporary Greenwich Village by Walking Off the Big Apple (Revised and updated.) Flipping through Greenwich Village: A Photographic Guide by Edmund T. Delaney and Charles Lockwood with photographs by George Roos, a second, revised edition published in 1976, it’s easy to compare the black and white images with the look of today’s neighborhood and see how much the Village has changed. A long shot photograph of Washington Square taken up high from an apartment north of the park, and with the looming two towers of the World Trade Center off to the distant south in the background, reveals a different landscape than what we would encounter today. On the north side of the park, an empty lot and two small buildings have since given way to NYU’s Kimmel Center and a new NYU Center for Academic and Spiritual Center Life. The Judson Me...

Museums in New York Open on Mondays

UPDATED July 9, 2024 Please consult the museum websites for changes in days and hours. • Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) 10:30 am - 5:30 pm • The Metropolitan Museum of Art 10 am - 5 pm • Whitney Museum 10:30 - 6 pm • American Museum of Natural History 10 am - 5:30 pm • Jewish Museum 11 am - 6 pm • International Center of Photography (ICP) 11 am -7 pm • Guggenheim 10:30 am - 5:30 pm • The Museum of the City of New York 10 am - 5 pm • Cooper Hewitt 10 am - 6 pm • Neue Galerie 11 am - 6 pm The Whitney Museum of American Art General Information American Museum of Natural History Central Park West and 79th Street See the post, Big Things to See at the American Museum of Natural History . Cooper Hewitt 2 East 91st St. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum 1071 Fifth Ave Jewish Museum 1109 Fifth Ave The Metropoli...

10 Short Walks from Grand Central Terminal

(updated March 2017) Famously crowded Grand Central Terminal functions as a major crossroads for the city, hosting busy commuters as they come and go from the suburbs via the Metro-North Railroad or within the city via a few subway lines, but the terminal also happens to be a good place to launch short walks. With its south side fronting E. 42nd Street and its massive structure interrupting Park Avenue, Grand Central provides quick access to many of the city's most well-known attractions. The New York Public Library and Bryant Park are only a couple of blocks away from the terminal, a quick jaunt on 42nd Street. And from there, Times Square is just another block or two farther west of the library, its neon shimmering in the distance. One wonders, standing near the intersection of 5th Avenue and 42nd Street, how many souls have been lured away from their well-meaning library studies by the beckoning lights of the Theater District. Grand Central Terminal : Before setting...

From Penn Station to New York Landmarks: Measuring Walking Distance and Time in Manhattan

(revised 2017) How long does it take to walk from Penn Station/Madison Square Garden to well-known destinations in Manhattan? What are the best walking routes ? What if I don't want to see anything in particular but just want to walk around? In addition to the thousands of working commuters from the surrounding area, especially from New Jersey and Long Island who arrive at Penn Station via New Jersey Transit or the Long Island Rail Road, many people arrive at the station just to spend time in The City. Some have questions. Furthermore, a sporting event may have brought you to Madison Square Garden (above Penn Station), and you want to check out what the city offers near the event. This post if for you. The map below should help you measure walking distances and times from the station to well-known destinations in Manhattan - Bryant Park , the Metropolitan Museum of Art , the Empire State Building , Times Square , Rockefeller Center , Washington Square Park , the High Line ...

25 Things To Do in Chelsea

On the High Line, with the Whitney Museum of American Art (revised and updated 2018) The phenomenal popularity of the High Line on the West Side has no doubt introduced many visitors to the pleasures of Chelsea , the multifaceted eclectic neighborhood that stretches out below. On the west side of the rails, between W. 14th and W. 29th Streets or so, the Chelsea Gallery District is home to hundreds of contemporary art galleries in repurposed warehouses. New luxury residences rise up around these spaces, taking advantage of the stunning Hudson River views. On the east side of the line, the iconic Empire State Building comes into the picture, but closer in, the Gothic Revival outlines of the General Theological Seminary represent the neighborhood's roots in an earlier century. Chelsea is a remarkable neighborhood bound together by an artistic and visual history, but it's also a community held together by social institutions - schools, historic houses of worsh...

25 Things To Do Near the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)

(updated 2016) The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) at 11 W. 53rd Street is near many other New York City attractions, so before or after a trip to the museum, a short walk in any direction could easily take in additional experiences. Drawing a square on a map with the museum at the center, a shape bounded by 58th Street to the north and 48th Street to the south, with 7th Avenue to the west and Park Avenue to the east, proves the point of the area's cultural richness. (A map follows the list below.) While well-known sightseeing stops fall with these boundaries, most notably Rockefeller Center, St. Patrick's Cathedral, and the great swath of famous Fifth Avenue stores, cultural visitors may also want to check out places such as the Austrian Cultural Forum, the 57th Street galleries, the Onassis Cultural Center, and the Municipal Art Society. The image above shows an intriguing glimpse of the tops of two Beaux-Arts buildings through an opening of the wall inside MoMA's scu...

Walking Off the Big Apple

Search This Blog