Garden Guide: New York City (Garden Guides) [Paperback]

Nancy Berner (Author), Susan Lowry (Author)

Book Description

Series: Garden Guides | Publication Date: June 30, 2002

If you know where to look, remarkable gardens welcome visitors in almost every nook and cranny of New York City. They're perched on rooftops, concealed behind sleek Midtown façades, tucked inside venerable museums, and waiting behind gates you may have passed by a hundred times. Some are even hidden in plain sight, such as the romantic Shakespeare Garden, the windy bluffs of the Heather Garden, or the bold, contemporary Gantry Plaza State Park. This lively guide to 100 gardens (open to the public and mostly free) in all five boroughs offers scores of unexpected discoveries, from not one but two authentic Chinese Scholar's gardens to a beguiling children's maze, a huge airplane topiary, and the largest community garden in America. More than just a guide to flora, Garden Guide: New York City describes the intriguing stories and colorful personalities behind these green spaces. From the city's horticultural crown jewels to its quirky community gardens, the book tells when each garden is at its best and gives practical information including directions, hours, public transportation, and amenities.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Their concise, elegantly written text is full of fascinating background on the places and their designers, as well as plant information. (ElleDecor.com )

[A]n antidote to the feeling, as Joni Mitchell once expressed it, that New York has taken all the trees and put them in a tree museum. It lists the obvious places to bask in the green…but also the more obscure…and divides them by neighborhood, revealing that the city is spotted with these small respites. And what better way to spend a summer afternoon, when everyone else has decamped to some beachside, than to rediscover the city itself? (The New Yorker )

[A] 'must' for gardeners planning a visit to the Big Apple…features over twenty new gardens…making for a compact take-along tote for any gardening enthusiast. (Midwest Book Review )

Every designer and gardener needs to pick up a copy of this revised guide to NYC gardens….indispensable….even if you’re not going to be in NYC anytime soon, you won’t want to miss reading this little book on more than 100 NYC gardens….a real treasure, with many fabulous photos. (Jane Berger - Garden Design Online )

[T]uck this comprehensive but compact Garden Guide into your backpack, and check out some gardens....History and details abound in this handy tourist's guide, which will help you see the City from a new angle with a clear focus, through emerald-colored glasses. (Kentucky Herald-Leader )

[E]ssential for anyone interested in New York’s urban scene….Superb photographs. (Landscape Architecture )

I would now love to return to New York with this book in my suitcase to explore more than the usual attractions. (Garden Design Unlimited )

...a great little companion for the summer months in New York City... (A Daily Dose of Architecture blog ) --This text refers to the Vinyl Bound edition.

About the Author

NANCY MEISELAS BERNER has worked as an editor at Farrar, Straus and Giroux, an associate with the Liz Darhansoff Literary Agency, and an editorial consultant to Human Rights Watch. She is presently the Associate Editor of the Children’s Book Committee at Bank Street College. She lives in New York City.

Susan Lowry was a television journalist in Canada and the United States before switching fields and earning a degree in landscape architecture. She lives in New York City, where she works as a freelance landscape designer.

Product Details

• Paperback: 402 pages
• Publisher: Little Bookroom (June 30, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1892145200
• ISBN-13: 978-1892145208
• Product Dimensions: 5.6 x 3.9 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.1 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,272,888 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Garden Guide: A Gem, November 24, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Garden Guide: New York City (Garden Guides) (Paperback)

This book is filled with beautiful photos and short descriptons of gardens from all five boroughs of New York City. Leafing through it, once again I realized how special this city is. Garden Guide: New York City is a must for anyone who wants to know the city better; for those of us who live here and for those who are just visiting.

Small enough to carry in one's purse, it is concise and well researched. It is pleasure to read and makes you want to explore the city through its gardens. Be careful, if you are not already a garden lover it might make you one. From the Chinese Scholar's Garden in Staten Island to the Botanical Garden in Queens; from Rincon Criollo in the Bronx to The Conservatory Garden on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, even in its gardens the diverstiy and creativity of New Yorkers is evident and that makes New Yorkers like me burst with pride.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Garden Guide: New York City (Garden Guides), August 22, 2006

By 

M. Ryan "love to garden" (Southern California) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Garden Guide: New York City (Garden Guides) (Paperback)

This thorough book organized gardens in New York city by location, gave subway and/or bus directions, and a wonderful description of each garden so it was easy to decide whether I wanted to go see that garden. It was amazing and I saw gardens big and small throughout my visit to the city in a short period of time. I'm going to check to see if the book is available for other places I tend to visit.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Perfect little book about New York's greenery, August 10, 2010

By 

Pamela Robinson (Long Island) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Garden Guide: New York City, Revised Edition (Vinyl Bound)

If you're from out of town, gardens may not be the first word that comes to mind when you think of New York City. But "Garden Guide: New York City (Revised Edition)" will set you straight and take you to lovely spots, big and small, around all five boroughs. Some sites are relatively well known, especially those in Manhattan: The Cloisters, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, for example. But there are little hidden gems to be found everywhere, not to mention the can't-be-missed High Line, a converted elevated train line that runs through Downtown Manhattan. And then there are the marvelous sites in the Bronx (the County Courthouse green roof, Taqwa Community Farm), Queens (the Curtis "50 cent" Community Garden, Gantry Plaza State Park), Brooklyn (Brooklyn Heights Promenade, Red Hook Gardens) and Staten Island (Bayview Habitat, Snug Harbor Cultural Center.)

The size and complexity of the scores of gardens listed vary greatly: some cover acres of ground, are open to the public year round and attract tourists and residents alike. Others are tiny, protected by gates or difficult to locate, open only occasionally or to limited numbers of visitors. But each adds to New York's green spaces. Directions, hours, photos and a history accompany each garden listing. The book is quite complete yet small enough to tuck into a bag or big pocket.