Bocce Ball Court Near Me in the Bronx: Ciccarone Park on Arthur Avenue

Ciccarone Park fills just 0.55 acres on East 188th Street between Arthur Avenue and Hughes Avenue, and its bocce court is free, first come and permit-free outside tournaments, according to NYC Parks. The park sits one block from the Arthur Avenue Retail Market in Belmont, the neighborhood the city itself calls the Little Italy of the Bronx, so a bocce ball court near me search here doubles as a lunch plan: play a few frames, then walk across the street for a hero.

The park honors Vincent Ciccarone, born in 1886 in the province of Chieti, Italy, the youngest of seven children. He served as a sharpshooter and corporal in the Italian army, emigrated, and ran a general store in Norfolk, New York. Drafted in November 1917 into Company B of the 305th Infantry, 77th Division, he was wounded in the Argonne Forest in 1918 and died of those wounds at Fort McHenry in Maryland on January 10, 1920.

The playground opened on July 15, 1934, one of nine paid for by the NYPD War Memorial Fund. Robert Moses obtained a ruling that each of those playgrounds had to be named for a soldier killed in the war, which is how a Bronx triangle came to carry Ciccarone's name. Mayor La Guardia and Moses dedicated the set together from a sister playground in Brooklyn.

The court is newer than most visitors assume. On August 23, 2007, the city cut the ribbon on a $2.7 million renovation that added a bocce court and game tables for adults, a central spray shower and four new entrance gates; children from Our Lady of Mount Carmel school took part. Then-Commissioner Adrian Benepe called the playground the centerpiece of the Belmont neighborhood for decades.

Look for the playful detail Parks highlights today: the spray showers in the children's area are shaped like oversized bocce balls. The Belmont Business Improvement District also used the park for its first Bronx Little Italy Bocce Ball Tournament in October 2016, a full-day event with teams from the United States Bocce Federation, and it still holds its Christmas tree lighting here each December.

There is one court, which means patience is part of the game. Parks puts the citywide rule simply: with the exception of tournaments, courts are first come, first served, and no permits are required, so arrive early. Bring your own set of balls, ask whoever is playing if you can take the next game, and wait at the game tables rather than on the court edge while a frame is in progress.

Plan around the neighbors, because the court shares a small fenced space with a busy children's playground and its spray showers. On hot summer afternoons the splash area pulls in families from the surrounding blocks, while a cool October morning leaves more room around the game tables. Be honest with yourself about the scale: this is a pocket park, not a sports complex, and a group of more than eight will spend more time watching than throwing. Split a larger crew into two teams of four and rotate.

NYC Parks marks the Ciccarone court as not accessible in its bocce dataset, so wheelchair users should plan around that. The park does list public restrooms, fitness equipment, toddler and pre-teen play areas, and a landscaped plaza. Its 2025 condition score was 83, with 40 mapped trees shading parts of the space, which matters on a warm afternoon because the court itself has no roof.

Mike's Deli inside the Arthur Avenue Retail Market at 2344 Arthur Ave is the obvious post-game stop. The market opened in the early 1940s under Mayor La Guardia to move pushcart vendors indoors, and Mike's has been part of it since Mike Greco arrived from Calabria in 1947. Its menu lists an eggplant parmigiana hero at $15, the one it says beat Bobby Flay, and rice balls at $5.50 each.

Madonia Brothers Bakery at 2348 Arthur Ave was founded in 1918 by Palermo-born Mario Madonia and is now run by his great-grandson Daniel, so pick up bread here before you head home.

For a sit-down dinner, Zero Otto Nove at 2357 Arthur Ave, from chef Roberto Paciullo, bakes Sorrento-style pizza in a wood-burning brick oven. It is closed Mondays, so a Monday bocce outing should end at the deli counters instead. On other days it opens for lunch from noon to 2:30pm, then again at 4:30pm.

Our Lady of Mount Carmel, at 627 East 187th Street by Belmont Avenue, is a two-minute walk south. The parish dates to 1906 for the Italians who came to build the Bronx Zoo and the New York Botanical Garden, and it still offers a Sunday 11am Mass in Italian. The Belmont name itself comes from Belle Mont, the Lorillard tobacco family estate; their old snuff mill still stands inside the Botanical Garden.

If the court is busy for more than half an hour, take that as your cue to walk Arthur Avenue end to end and come back. Hughes Avenue, the park's eastern edge, is named for Archbishop John Hughes, who founded Fordham University, and its Rose Hill campus sits just north across Fordham Road if you want a longer loop before your second try at the court.

Location: Ciccarone Park, East 188th Street between Arthur Avenue and Hughes Avenue, Bronx, NY 10458; Parks lists the court at Arthur Avenue and East 188th Street. Cost: free, no permit, first come, first served, tournaments take priority. Transit: Metro-North's Harlem or New Haven line to Fordham, or the B, D or 4 train to Fordham Road and the Bx12 bus east, per the Belmont BID. The court is not marked accessible. Bring your own bocce balls.