Harvesting herbs in the green oases of the city

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the essentials in brief

• New York is made up of skyscrapers, busy streets – and green spaces: a full 14 percent of the city!
• Parks, hills and even an entire island, Governors Island, offer havens for chilling out.
• Special highlights: hammocks, garden schools and herb beds to harvest yourself.

Pop singer Alicia Keys sings about New York as “Concrete Jungle”, i.e. as a jungle made of concrete.

In fact, the 8.8 million metropolis between the Hudson River and Rockaway Beach seems to consist solely of a skyline of skyscrapers.

But New York City is more than glass and concrete: 14 percent of the city is covered with green spaces. Smaller and larger parks are also hidden away from the famous Central Park and give insights into lesser-known sides of the US metropolis.

Hammock with a view of the skyline

Just an eight-minute ferry ride from the southern tip of Manhattan lies an often-overlooked New York City oasis: Governors Island.

Those who land on the 70-hectare, car-free island have a wide view of the skyline and the Statue of Liberty.

In the Hammock Grove park area you can dangle in hidden hammocks. The “Teaching Garden”, a kind of garden school, is worthwhile, especially for children.

The “Friends of Governors” offer free, one-hour walking tours of the island. Rental bikes can also be rented.

Time out in Astoria

Just getting to Socrates Sculpture Park can be a treat in itself. If you hop on the ferry at Pier 11 (Wall Street station) in the south of Manhattan, you are approaching New York’s largest district of Queens in the most beautiful way.

In 48 minutes, the mini-cruise passes under four bridges, from the Brooklyn to the Queensboro Bridge, and offers views of the city on both sides of the East River.

Landing at the pier in Astoria, it’s a short walk to the Socrates Sculpture Park. Today it is hard to imagine that until the late 1980s there was nothing more than a garbage dump here on the river bank.

It is thanks to a committed neighborhood and artist community that a park was created that is also a respected open-air museum.

In addition to art and garden projects, the summer program includes free activities such as yoga and meditation classes and even canoe trips that depart from nearby Hallett’s Cove Beach.

With all of this, visitors enjoy a panoramic view across Roosevelt Island to Manhattan’s Upper East Side.

berries instead of concrete

It’s a surreal place full of contrasts: The Concrete Plant Park on the Bronx River is New York’s first public “Foodway”. In this community garden between the river and the Amtrak train tracks, everyone can harvest herbs and fruits.

“Up until the late 1980s, this was still a large concrete plant,” says project coordinator Nathan Hunter, pointing to the remaining, huge, rust-red cement silos.

“Then the plant was closed and the deserted place became a sad place with a garbage dump and drug hub.” After protests from residents, the NYC Parks authority responsible finally opened a new park here in 2009.

Kraftoase on the Hudson River

The view from the pergola at Wave Hill in the northwest end of the Bronx can only be described as spectacular:

From the highest point of the park, the view sweeps west over more garden levels, the glittering Hudson River and attaches itself to the forested basalt cliffs of New Jersey: “The Palisades”.

Wave Hill is a testament to the diversity of the distinctly green Bronx. The nearby Van Cortlandt Park and Pelham Bay Park in the east of the borough are among the largest in New York.

The only half-hour journey to Wave Hill on the North Metro Railroad’s “Hudson Line” from Grand Central Station offers views of the Harlem and Hudson Rivers. It’s then a short walk up the hill from Riverdale Station.