| Edification value |  |
|---|---|
| Entertainment value |  |
| Should you go? | |
| Time spent | 176 minutes (including lunch) — I could easily spend a whole day |
| Best thing I saw or learned | The display of plant carnivores: flytraps, sundews, pitcher plants. My favorite members of the floral kingdom.
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Both New Yorkers and non-New Yorkers alike tend to think of the Bronx as entirely, unremittingly gray: paved urban overdevelopment at its very worst. In reality, the Bronx features large expanses of green.
- Pelham Bay Park (home to the Barstow-Pell Mansion) is the largest of the city’s parks.
- Van Cortlandt Park (home to the eponymous house) is also sizable.
- Wave Hill and the other verdant bits of Riverdale along the Hudson are beautiful.
- Woodlawn Cemetery recently got certified as an arboretum.
- And let’s not forget the Zoo.
But of all the many green spaces the Bronx has to offer, the most beautiful must surely be the New York Botanical Garden.
The New York Botanical Garden dates to 1891 and sprawls across 250 acres. (Don’t worry, there’s a tram.) Its vast holdings include a spectacular neoclassical Herbarium & Library, and an even more spectacular glass conservatory. Calvert Vaux and the Olmstead Brothers had hands in the Garden’s design, and of course it’s hard to beat them for this sort of thing. Continue reading “New York Botanical Garden”