Leaving Brooklyn: Where to Take Your New York City Vacations In the Other Four Boroughs
The Bronx
We’re lucky here in Brooklyn to have the lovely Botanic Garden that we do, but up in the Bronx? It’s a whole new game. The Bronx is home to the New York Botanic Garden, which is sprawling and full of arboreal, verdant beauty. It is totally worth a trip, even if it didn’t have the awesome exhibition “Wild Medicine” going on right now, which it does. You’ll get to explore the Italian Renaissance garden and learn how herbs and flowers and bark and roots and everything have been used throughout history to heal and protect people. So, you’ll get to walk through gorgeous gardens and learn something. If you just feel like walking around somewhere beautiful without really learning something, though, head over to Pelham Bay Park, which is THREE TIMES, the size of Central Park, by which I mean, it’s big. Pelham Bay Park is also home to Orchard Beach, which is lovely and, coincidentally, where my high school holds Senior Beach Day. So avoid it mid-June! But it’s not June for awhile, so you can feel safe in knowing that it won’t be Senior Beach Day for months.
And where should you go to eat after a long day of looking at plants and flowers and other nice things? Arthur Avenue. Obviously. It’s everything that Little Italy used to be, and you can’t go wrong strolling through the markets, maybe grabbing a spinach and artichoke slice at Full Moon Pizza, and definitely bringing home some fresh mozzarella from Casa della Mozzarella. It just might be the best mozzarella in New York, but you’ll have to try it to judge for yourself. So do it.
New York Botanical Garden; 2900 Southern Boulevard
Pelham Bay Park; Pelham Bridge Road
Casa della Mozzarella; 604 E 187th Street
Full Moon Pizza; 600 E 187the Street