The New York Times, NY/Region, September 27, 2012

It should be no big secret that the Miser is a huge fan of Governors Island; more than a few recent columns have pointed readers there. But to be fair, it’s not the city’s only culturally rich island park. Before winter’s bluster starts making outdoor adventures less palatable, it’s time to consider other, equally distinctive destinations.

One is Randalls Island, the recently reinvigorated complex perched beneath the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge, across the East River from Harlem. Though perhaps better known for hosting world-class track and field events at Icahn Stadium and music festivals like the Beastie Boys’ concerts for Tibet, the island is also a place for the visual arts. It has supported five different artists in residence each of the last two years as part of its “Flow” exhibition, presented in conjunction with the Bronx Museum.

Each artist was commissioned to mount an installation that engages the environmental and historical aspects of the island. Gabriela Bertiller’s red-and-white tiled picnic tables and Michael Clyde Johnson’s offset “viewing rooms” suggest novel perspectives on traditional park activities. Sculpture by Laura Kaufman pays homage to the “cosmic” scale of the R.F.K. Bridge, Sean Wrenn’s to a fatal early 20th-century shipwreck on the island. Nathan Gwynne’s life-size, faceless cutouts of Jimi Hendrix, Jesse Owens, Robert Moses and other figures of island history riff on the classic amusement park photo-op.

Getting to the island may take a little planning and effort, but there are a handful of options. From Manhattan, there is the M35 bus from 125th Street; the footbridge at 103rd Street and F.D.R. Drive accommodates pedestrians and cyclists. There are also pedestrian walkways from all three strands of the R.F.K. Bridge, beginning in Manhattan, Queens and the Bronx. If you’re driving, take the Randalls Island exit off the bridge.

(Saturday and Sunday; Randalls Island Park; (212) 830-7722, randallsisland.org. )