Alligators may not lurk in the city’s subways, as the urban myth has it, but peregrine falcons nest on the ledges of Midtown skyscrapers, jackrabbits have settled beyond the runways of Kennedy Airport, and coyotes roam from Westchester County to the Bronx.

From the ocean breeze of Battery Park, where a broke and nostalgic Noel Coward watched ships sail from England in the 1920s, to the forest of oak, fir and tulip trees on the northern edge of Manhattan, New York City sprouts wildlife and open spaces. Urban gardens flourish, from community efforts in Alphabet City, complete with colored lights in summer, to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, where Japanese cherry trees explode in clouds of riotous pink each spring. Pocket parks throughout the city, many so small you might miss them as you pass, have been lovingly spruced up lately, mostly by passionate volunteers. A few New York cemeteries offer a scenic detour: Green-Wood in Brooklyn, where Boss Tweed and Lola Montez are laid to rest, and Woodlawn in the Bronx, both date back to the late 19th century, when rolling fields, forests and streams provided rest. to the recently deceased.

Despite the Bush administration’s desire to turn it over to private developers, Governor’s Island was transferred to the National Park Service in 2003. It was opened to the public in 2004, for the first time since the American Revolution.

New York has more than 28,000 acres (11,300 hectares) of parkland, of which 10,000 acres (4,000 hectares) are more or less in their natural state.

Autumn in New York

In 1609, when Henry Hudson sailed the Half Moon up the North River, later renamed the Hudson, his first mate, Robert Juett, wrote: “We found a land full of great tall oaks, with grass and flowers, so pleasant like never before. was seen.” His words resonate when walking through Central Park. For landscape architect Fredrick Law Olmsted, his designer with Calvert Vaux in the 1850s, the purpose was “to supply millions upon thousands of weary laborers who have no opportunity to spend their summers in the country with a sample of the God’s work”.

Central Park includes the largest stand of American elms in the country, as well as the North Woods, a remote overgrown forest between 102nd and 106th streets that looks more like Minnesota than Manhattan. The trails traverse a deep ravine, a moss-covered lock, and cascading waterfalls between a pair of rustic stone bridges.

Beyond the narrow beauty of Riverside Park on the Upper West Side and the fragrant herb gardens of the Cloisters in Fort Tryon Park lies one of the most secluded spots on the island of Manhattan, Inwood Hill Park, a 196-acre park (79 hectares). ) expands from trees and meadows. Wolves roamed free and Native Americans lived here, and about 100 acres (40 hectares) form the last remaining native forest in Manhattan.

Flying squirrels and a family of owls nest in a 100-foot (30-meter) tall tulip forest. This part of the park is known as the Shorakapok Natural Area, after an Indian village that was located between what are now 204th and 207th streets.

Outer Township Perspective

Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx is the third largest green space in New York City. Although its 1,146 acres (446 hectares) are traversed by three major thoroughfares, parts of it feel as far removed from the rest of the city as New England. A trail passes through a centuries-old hardwood forest with skunks, pheasants and raccoons; another meanders along Lake Van Cortlandt to a freshwater marsh with swans, egrets and snapping turtles.

Where the Bronx meets Long Island Sound, Pelham Bay Park’s 2,764 acres (1,118 hectares) encompass two golf courses, a riding stable, the city’s RCMP School, and a large glacial rock. Religious refugee Anne Hutchinson, from the Massachusetts Bay Colony, which settled in 1642, hid here from Indian raids. Split Rock remains a natural monument to pristine rainforest and wetlands. Beyond Goose Creek Marsh is a wildlife sanctuary for wading herons, sandpipers, and sloth woodcocks.

Queens is the greenest district in New York City, with more than 7,000 acres (2,833 hectares) of parkland and more than half of the city’s trees, including the former Kissena Park Arboretum (the remains of a 19th century), Forest Park’s stand of native red and white oak trees and the majestic weeping beech. Planted in 1847; in 1966 it became the first tree designated as a New York City landmark.

Wedged between the Long Island Expressway and the Grand Central Parkway in northeastern Queens, about two-thirds of Cunningham Park’s 324 acres (131 hectares) are natural forests, ponds, and fields. Closer to the coast, Alley Pond Park borders the marshes of Little Neck Bay, with patches of woodland totaling more than 600 acres (243 hectares).

The Old Vanderbilt Motor Parkway was built by a descendant of the illustrious Vanderbilt family in 1908 so he could race his cars, and a weedy stretch connects the two parks. The narrow land to the Queens County Farm Museum in Floral Park really does feel like country. A 47-acre (19-hectare) working farm, the museum has a farmhouse built in 1772, a stall selling homegrown vegetables, and a barnyard with geese, sheep, cattle, and pigs.

A tree grows in Brooklyn

New York’s oldest farmhouse, and its first officially designated landmark, is in Brooklyn’s Flatlands. Built in 1652 by Pieter Claeson Wyckoff, an indentured servant who became one of the settlement’s most prominent citizens, the simple house was the heart of the mudflat farmhouse formerly owned by the Canarsie Indians. Now a museum, it is surrounded by a small park with foliage the Wyckoff family would find familiar, including a vegetable and herb garden, and a spring garden of daffodils and tulips.

Brooklyn’s most famous park is the 526-acre (212-hectare) Prospect Park, designed, like Central Park, by Fredrick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux. From the entrance at Grand Army Plaza, a path leads to the peaceful expanse of Long Meadow, a rolling green that stretches to a dark ridge or distant trees, part of the Ravine in the wild heart of the park. Olmsted wrote, “the contemplation of natural scenes…is favorable to the health and vigor of men.”

When he wasn’t designing parks for other counties, Olmsted grew pear trees and vegetables on his farm on Hylan Boulevard in Staten Island. Traditionally more rural than other parts of New York, the borough was forever changed when the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge opened it to tri-state traffic in 1964. Travelers speeding past are missing 28 miles (45 km) of beautiful trails from High Rock Park to La Tourette Park, part of the Greenbelt’s 2,500 acres (1,011 hectares) of rocky outcroppings and tangled forests, winding past suburban ranches and turn-of-the-20th-century mansions.

emerald necklace

For years, the dream of conservation groups has been to surround Manhattan with an “emerald necklace” of tree-lined parks and trails. In 1998, legislation was finally signed creating a joint city-state “public benefit corporation” and a continuous riverfront trail and bike lane that runs along the Hudson River most of the way. to 155th Street. Almost every inch of it is used by New Yorkers, and people from all over the city head to Battery Park, with views of the Statue of Liberty, to walk, skate, and enjoy the gorgeous sunsets.

In the words of the late poet and museum curator Frank O’Hara, “One never needs to leave the confines of New York to see all the greenery one desires.”