Calisthenics Park in Williamsburg: McCarren Pull-Up Bars

McCarren Park is the calisthenics park North Brooklyn actually uses: 35 acres on the Williamsburg and Greenpoint border with a free adult fitness area, an exercise station that street-workout directories tag as Barstarzz, and an eight-lane running track, all bounded by Lorimer Street, Bayard Street, Driggs Avenue and Union Avenue. The McCarren Play Center at 776 Lorimer Street is the address most maps use, and the bars cost nothing and need no reservation. Expect company, because between the joggers, kickball leagues and dog walkers, this park rarely empties out.

NYC Parks puts the park's fitness equipment in the zone framed by Bayard Street, Lorimer Street, Driggs Avenue and Union Avenue, the part of the park that holds the track and turf field. The calisthenics directory Calisthenics-Parks lists a Barstarzz exercise station here, using the 776 Lorimer Street address, with pull-up bars, low bars and stations for abs and legs, plus the running loop beside it.

From the subway, the G train to Nassau Avenue lets you out at the park's northern edge, while the L to Bedford Avenue or Lorimer Street is a short walk south. Most people approach along Bedford Avenue or Lorimer Street and head straight for the track, which is easy to spot across the open lawns.

The park opened in 1906 as Greenpoint Park and was renamed in 1909 for State Senator Patrick Henry McCarren, a former cooper in the Williamsburg sugar refineries who rose to become Brooklyn's Democratic boss and personally pushed for this site. That is why the name feels attached to everything around it, from the pool to the neighborhood bars.

The biggest landmark is the pool, one of the giant Works Progress Administration pools planned by Robert Moses and designed by Aymar Embury II, which opened in the summer of 1936. It sat empty for 28 years, hosted concerts from 2005 to 2008, and reopened as the restored McCarren Pool and Play Center in June 2012.

The training area you see now dates to a roughly $4 million project that closed the track and field for about a year starting in 2018. It replaced the whole track and field, upgraded the adult fitness area and added benches and trees. The result, finished in 2019, is an eight-lane recreational running track wrapped around a synthetic turf field.

On the bars side, expect a straightforward street-workout kit: tall and medium pull-up bars, low bars for rows and inclined push-ups, and stations for core and leg work. It is enough for a complete push-pull-legs session without carrying anything, though a resistance band and a jump rope turn it into a proper circuit.

The smartest way to use McCarren is to alternate: one lap of the track, then a set at the bars, repeated until your grip gives out. Eight laps with pull-ups, dips and squats between them gets you around two miles of running without a single minute of waiting for equipment, because someone is always coming off a bar as you finish a lap.

The running loop has its own manners. Faster runners stay inside, walkers and strollers drift outside, and on weekends youth soccer and adult leagues take over the turf. If a team is warming up on the infield, stay on the track and keep your plyometric jumps on the rubber by the bars instead of the grass.

NYC Parks describes the park as shared by families born in the neighborhood, recent immigrants and young renters, and you see all three at the bars. Early mornings bring runners squeezing in a set before work; after six on weekday evenings, groups of friends arrive together, film handstands and rotate through muscle-ups.

Saturday is a different animal. The McCarren Park Greenmarket sets up at the Union Avenue and Driggs Avenue side on Saturday mornings, and by late morning the park is full of shoppers, picnickers and pick-up games. If you want empty bars on a weekend, arrive before 9am, train, then walk over to the market for fruit as it opens up.

Because McCarren is so busy, the rules matter more here than at quieter parks. Do one set and step off, do not drape jackets and bags over the low bars, and if someone is mid-way through a ladder, ask how many sets they have left. Speakers stay low; the dog walkers and families sharing the path will thank you.

One honest note: the summer evening crowd can make serious skill work frustrating, with constant interruptions and people cutting through. If you are trying to drill a front lever or a planche lean with full rest periods, come on a weekday morning or move to a quieter playground station nearby.

Before you leave, look for the statue of Father Jerzy Popieluszko, the Polish priest honored here in a nod to Greenpoint's Polish community. Walk north on Manhattan Avenue and you are in the heart of Polish Greenpoint, with bakeries and delis that make an easy refuel after training.

Heading south instead, Bedford Avenue leads into the center of Williamsburg, past cafes and shops toward the L at Bedford Avenue. In summer, the free McCarren Pool is the obvious cooldown, but in October and the colder months it is closed, so plan on the walk and a coffee instead.

The fitness area and track are free and open to the public. There is no locker or gear check, so bring only what you can keep an eye on, and bring water, because the fountains are seasonal. In April 2026 News 12 reported that the community would help decide how $15 million in upgrades would be spent on a McCarren Park field, so expect some construction fencing in parts of the park in the coming years.

If McCarren is packed, the same Barstarzz network lists a second Williamsburg station at Steuben Playground, about a 15-minute bike ride away. In Manhattan, Tompkins Square Park in the East Village is the closest big calisthenics crowd if you want more people to train with, not fewer.