NY Botanical Garden & Brooklyn Botanic Garden

The New York Botanical Garden is home to the nation’s largest Victorian glasshouse, the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory, a New York City landmark that has showcased NYBG’s distinguished tropical, Mediterranean, and desert plant collections since 1902. At the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, tours, concerts, dance performances, and symposia are always on the roster, as well as special one-time events featuring elements of the Garden at their peak. Each spring, BBG celebrates the flowering of the Japanese cherry trees with our annual Sakura Matsuri (Cherry Blossom Festival), and each fall is spiced up with a multicultural Chile Pepper Fiesta!

Central Park

Designed in 1858 by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, envisioning a wooded urban oasis from treeless, rocky terrain and stagnant swampland, Central Park is New York City’s backyard — a place where people of all social and ethnic backgrounds mingle. The 843-acre Central Park, covering six percent of Manhattan, has more than 26,000 trees, 58 miles of scenic paths, and nearly 9,000 benches on 843 acres. Attracting 25 million people a year, it also houses the Central Park Zoo and Wildlife Center, lakes, boathouse, sports facilities and entertainment. Four visitor centers are: Belvedere Castle, a 19th century stone castle and home to the Henry Luce Nature Observatory; The Dairy Visitor Center and Gift Shop, in a Victorian building with a reference library; Charles A. Dana Discovery Center, with hands-on exhibits; and North Meadow Recreation center, with indoor/outdoor climbing walls, basketball and handball courts.

Bryant Park

A park since 1842, Bryant Park’s midtown location – one block from Times Square – is a big lunch hour destination in warm weather, typically hosting more than 5,000 workers on a football field-sized lawn. Amenities include a French-style carousel (mid-park on 40th Street), chess tables, free yoga classes, 25,000 varieties of flowers, and free wireless access. Bryant Park provides multiple venues for year-round events and gatherings. Six flower beds border Bryant Park’s lawn to the north and south—three on the shady south side and three on the sunny north. Along the northern and southern sides are twin promenades bordered by London plane trees (Platanus acerifolia), the same species found at the Jardin des Tuileries in Paris, and contributing to Bryant Park’s European aura.