Thornden Park — Attraction in City of Syracuse

This is an above-average quality, medium-sized park, with a variety of facilities. The park includes an outdoor swimming pool (open during Summer vacation), an outdoor amphitheater where plays and musical events are put on, a football field (mostly used for youth football), a GREAT Rose Garden, (unofficially) a great sledding hill in the winter (near the pool), basketball courts, and some run-down tennis courts that are technically still usable. There's also a small playground/picnic area, a lily pond, and several small wooded areas. The park has a bad reputation with Syracuse University students, in large part because Syracuse campus police instill the fear of God in incoming students about crime in the park. There IS crime in the park, and every few years, something terrible happens. That being said, on average there are probably about 4/5 reported crimes that occur in the park, and most of them involve naive SU students getting mugged when they are walking through the park after dark... The lesson is this- GO DURING THE DAY!!! My information comes from living in the neighborhood for the last couple years, and walking in the...

Thornden Park is adjacent to the Syracuse University area, and if you approach it from that direction, you might have trouble finding a legal parking place at times. This is unfortunate, because the Mills Rose Garden is at that end of the park, and in the summer (especially June) it is quite nice. But I've been there at times when the only legal parking to be found was at the extreme other end of the park, near the pool. This is a reflection of the park's popularity.In addition to the rose garden and the pool, there are picnic areas, a playground, basketball courts, and an amphitheater where summer productions can occasionally be found. There's a lily pond across the street from the rose garden, and a football field. The one-way road around the park has a spur that leads up to a water tower, and it's worth a visit as the view up there is kind of nice. There are bike lanes along the road, but the road is kind of steep so if you aren't a strong biker, you might end up walking your bike...

I love Thornden Park. It is an old school park with lots of room to run. There is a beautiful outdoor amphitheater, play area for little kids (toddlers and up), a great pool for summer time (outdoor) and the cool Westcott area down the street for coffee, clothes, food and bars. This park is a gem. It has had a bad rap in the past because it edges onto a lower income area, and so people are afraid of all the stereotypes that come with a lower income area. If you actually check the online crime maps, however, you will see that this park is fine, especially by day (what park would you go into at night anyway?)....