The six-and-a-half-acre esplanade has more than 9,000 plants, along with benches and bollards from the shipyard.
Go instead to the East River at the foot of Wall Street, where a two-block section of a new park, the East River Waterfront Esplanade, has just been finished.
A little further along the esplanade, having paused to watch teenagers performing parkour acrobatics on the big old cannons, I arrived at the B. Opened in 1984, it houses the Overlord Embroidery, a needle-stitched artwork, whose 34 panels show the run-up (from 1940 to 1944) to Operation Overlord, the D-Day landings, and victory over the Nazis.
Karis Durmer, 29, who works at Condé Nast in Times Square, said the esplanade had transformed a part of the city that she had thought of as unbearable: "Just people and the noise, the traffic, it's all cars and smoke and honking".
Within just over four minutes, the opening monoxide drone of Prelude on the Esplanade has already given way to the exultant Fanfare For the Hooper Heroes and thence to the Richard-Clayderman-plays-Steve-Reich ivory-tinkling of Movement 1: In the Countenance of Kings.
A two-week festival, which was due to run alongside the sailing events on the Esplanade, had to close on 3 August after lower than expected visitor numbers.
Built in 1925 to welcome passengers on the Orient Express, The Regent Esplanade has played host to kings, artists and politicians ever since.
In County Down, Holywood Esplanade has been closed due to flooding and Newcastle promenade is shut due to "adverse weather conditions".
Roosevelt Island, despite its waterfront esplanades, has the fewest dogs in the city, 15, because of longstanding rules barring most dogs.
