Sidewalk Gardens of New York (Pinover Schiff)

“New York City looks nothing—nothing—like it did just a decade and a half ago. It’s a place of newly gorgeous waterfront promenades, of trees, tall grasses and blooming flowers on patches of land and peninsulas of concrete and even stretches of rail tracks that were blighted or blank before.”
—Frank Bruni, The New York Times

Betsy Pinover Schiff has been photographing urban plantings and chronicling the “greening” of the city for more than two decades. Once limited to private spaces and elite neighborhoods, these plantings now proliferate throughout the five boroughs.

Sidewalk Gardens of New York reveals the transformation of the “city of concrete and glass” into one of the greenest and most richly planted urban centers in America. Nature and architecture combine in ways that will surprise even the most seasoned New Yorkers.

Featured are tree beds, planters, hanging baskets, and medians that mitigate the frenzy of the street; plazas and pocket parks that offer respite to pedestrians, building plantings that create a welcoming transition between public and private; community gardens; and parks, both the iconic and the newly planted along the waterfront in Brooklyn, Queens, and Lower Manhattan.