I am now walking on Broadway and the eighties, nineties and into the hundredth street.
This stretch of Broadway is more local and less touristic. There are many more mums strolling with their prams than anywhere else in New York City. I've actually met people who have moved from this nice relaxing area of the city and further up north, as they found they could no longer walk 'freely' because of all the baby strollers! I don't find them that bad albeit you do encounter lots on your way.
Broadway around here is not that famous for its restaurants; there you have to go to the parallel Avenues (Amsterdam and Columbus) to find nice places to eat.
If we do a small detour on Amsterdam Avenue and West 89th Street, walking towards Central Park you encounter a small park, which is in fact a Community Garden tendered voluntarily by locals. It's is a lovely recluse in the middle of the city and it always reminds me of tulips as I helped planting hundreds of tulip bulbs a few autumns there. In Spring you will then be greeted with this plethora of thousands of colors from all the tulips and other spring plants.
If you have a bit of green fingers and some spare time I can really recommend helping in a Community Garden like this one. You move your stiff body, you obtain a beautiful result while helping to improve the environment, and best of all you'll get to know a bit of the Community around you.
When checking a map of Manhattan, there are about 20 registered Community gardens on the island alone. Many more in Brooklyn, Queens and the other boroughs of NYC which is very reassuring in order to keep the city green. In fact, I believe more and more in urban gardens, to be self-sufficient, for the pleasure of growing one's own vegetables, and to surely cut the carbon footprint of what we eat.
Once, at a NYC presentation, I heard that if all rooftops of Manhattan would be transformed to hydroponic green house, the city could practically be self-sufficient in vegetables! Thought provoking, right?
