Skip to main content

A New York Spring Calendar - Blooming Times, Seasonal Events, and Wildlife


Read the updated Spring 2013 Calendar here.

Winter, we are so over you.

Blooming Times

• If you've spotted small yellow flowers on the bare stems of small ornamental trees this week, you're likely looking at the Cornelian Cherry Dogwood, an excellent harbinger of Spring.

• Central Park Conservancy's website lists blooming times within the park. During the month of March we begin to see crocus, daffodils, forsythia, snowdrops, witch-hazel, and hellebores. Species tulips will emerge in several places, but the Shakespeare Garden and Conservatory Garden are particularly good places to catch the beginning of Spring blooms.

• Citywide Blooming Calendar from New York City Department of Parks & Recreation
April is the month when full blooms appear in New York City, and this NYC Parks website provides a handy monthly guide to the specific locations of blooming trees, flowers, shrubs, and buds.

• Heritage Crabapple Trees. New York City Department of Parks & Recreation
Celebrating the great beautiful flowering crabapples, this page on the NYC Parks site explains why you can't buy and plant a crabapple today and expect it to look as beautiful as those in Central Park.
• Website of The New York Botanical Garden, Bronx River Parkway at Fordham Road Bronx. The Garden is open year-round, Tuesday-Sunday, 10am - 6pm. Check the website for exceptions.

• Walking Off the Big Apple's favorite spring walk is wandering in the Ramble in Central Park. The closest thing in New York to the back nine at Augusta. A favorite for birdwatching.

• Million TreesNYC. A citywide, public-private program to plant and care for one million new trees across the City's five boroughs over the next
decade.
• NYC Parks page honoring a Revolutionary-era white oak in Prospect Park that gave its life for its country.

• Look for the book, New York Trees: A Field Guide to the Metropolitan Area, by Edward S. Barnard.

• See the Wikipedia entry on the Oldest Living Thing in New York: Queens Giant, an old Tulip Poplar.

• Prospect Park in Brooklyn was hit particularly hard in the storm that rolled through the city on March 13-14, 2010. Nearly fifty old trees came down. Help out with your donations. Visit the Prospect Park Alliance website to learn more.

• The Metropolitan Museum of Art's medieval branch, The Cloisters Museum & Gardens, in uptown Manhattan, is one of the best places to see varieties of plants in bloom. Check out the museum's blog, The Medieval Garden Enclosed.

• According to the Victory Seeds website, the average last frost in New York City is April 13.

Spring Events for March and April 2010

• Wednesday, March 17, 2010 St. Patrick's Day Parade. Fifth Avenue, from 44th to 86th Streets. Begins at 11 a.m.

• Friday, March 19, 2010 - Sunday, March 21, 2010. Go Green Expo, Pier 92 12th Avenue & W 55th Street, New York, NY

• Sunday, April 4, 2010. Easter Parade. Fifth Avenue, beginning near St. Patrick's Cathedral.

• Monday April 5 at 1:10 p.m. Opening Day, New York Mets vs. the Florida Marlins. Citi Field.
• April 5 - 11, 2010. For those on the Tiger watch, the Masters Tournament takes place in Augusta, Georgia.

• Tuesday, April 13, 2010 TBD Opening Day, New York Yankees vs. Los Angeles Angels. Yankee Stadium.

• Tuesday, April 13, 2010. 9:30 p.m. The hit TV show Glee returns for its Spring season. More Spring associations of Glee - Matthew Morrison, who plays the coach of the Glee Club, sang "Younger Than Springtime" in his role in the Broadway revival of South Pacific. Lea Michele, who plays one of the talented singers in the club, starred in Spring Awakening.

• Sunday, April 18, 2010. Greek Independence Day Parade. Fifth Avenue.

• Sunday, April 25, 2010 - Sunday, April 25, 2010 NYC GROWS. Union Square Park New York, NY. The New York City Department of Parks & Recreation's annual NYC GROWS Garden Festival, where members of the public can come take part in activities and demonstrations that promote gardening.

• April 21- May 2. Tribeca Film Festival. Some of the special events take place outdoors.

• May 1, 2010. Japanese Cherry Blossom Festival - Sakura Matsuri 10 a.m. - 6 p.m. Rain or Shine. Free with admission. Celebration of Japanese culture and the blossoming of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden's 220 cherry trees. Also, see the garden's Cherry Blossom Status Map.

Religious Holidays

• Easter Sunday falls on April 4, 2010. Holy Week begins with Palm Sunday on March 28, 2010.

• Passover begins at sunset on Monday, March 29, 2010 and continues for 7 days until Monday, April 5.

Critters

• The recent appearance of coyotes in Manhattan has excited many a city dweller. People have spotted this furtive dog-like creature near Columbia University, down in Chelsea near the High Line, near the Pond and Heckscher Playground in Central Park. The website Urban Hawks keeps track of the wildlife in the city, and their recent photos of the coyote were quite spectacular. Urban Hawks also recently shared a reader's tip that red-tailed hawks were building a nest on top of One Fifth Avenue, the iconic Art Deco skyscraper just north of Washington Square Park. The big birds flying over the distinctive step-back tower looked like something out of a German expressionist horror film.

• Urban Wildlife Appreciation Day. Saturday, April 10, 2010. 12:00 p.m.-3:00 p.m. Fort Tryon Park, Cloister Lawn, Manhattan.

• New York City Birding: See the home page of NYC Audubon for events, trips, classes, and programs.

• The blog The City Birder is a good source of information for birdwatching in the big city.

“My favorite smell is the first smell of spring in New York." - Andy Warhol

Images from the archives of Walking Off the Big Apple. Highly recommended for this time of year - hot chocolate with melting peeps, pictured above.

Related post:
When the Cherry Blossoms Fall: A Walk Through the Brooklyn Botanic Garden
Labels:

Comments

  1. Pascale6:13 PM

    Someday I'll be back to smell the first smell of spring in NYC... must be something !

    ReplyDelete
  2. Leslie9:45 AM

    Hi Teri! I will be back in two weeks and am so looking forward to it. April in New York is wonderful! Any chance of meeting up again? Hope all is well - always a treat to drop by your blog.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Teri Tynes10:16 AM

    Hi Pascale- yes, it's a wonderful thing, especially after this past winter.

    Leslie- Yes! Look forward to it. Sorry I didn't make it to Vancouver for the Olympics. I want to hear all about it.

    ReplyDelete
  4. دردشه1:09 PM

    Thank you very much

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

25 Things To Do Near the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)

(updated 2016) The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) at 11 W. 53rd Street is near many other New York City attractions, so before or after a trip to the museum, a short walk in any direction could easily take in additional experiences. Drawing a square on a map with the museum at the center, a shape bounded by 58th Street to the north and 48th Street to the south, with 7th Avenue to the west and Park Avenue to the east, proves the point of the area's cultural richness. (A map follows the list below.) While well-known sightseeing stops fall with these boundaries, most notably Rockefeller Center, St. Patrick's Cathedral, and the great swath of famous Fifth Avenue stores, cultural visitors may also want to check out places such as the Austrian Cultural Forum, the 57th Street galleries, the Onassis Cultural Center, and the Municipal Art Society. The image above shows an intriguing glimpse of the tops of two Beaux-Arts buildings through an opening of the wall inside MoMA's scu
Read more

25 Things to Do Near the Metropolitan Museum of Art

(updated) Sitting on the steps in front of the Metropolitan Museum of Art is one of those iconic things to do in New York City. On a sunny day, the wide steps can become crowded with the young and old, the tourist and the resident. It's tempting to stay awhile and soak in the sun and the sights. Everyone has reasons for lingering there, with one being the shared pleasure of people watching along this expansive stretch of Fifth Avenue, a painting come to life. Certainly, just getting off one's feet for a moment is welcome, especially if the previous hours involved walking through the entirety of art history from prehistoric to the contemporary. The entrance to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Fifth Avenue The Metropolitan Museum of Art should be a singular pilgrimage, uninterrupted by feeble attempts to take in more exhibitions along Museum Mile. Pity the poor visitor who tries "to do" multiple museum exhibitions in one day, albeit ambitious, noble, and uplift
Read more

25 Things to Do Near the American Museum of Natural History

After visiting the American Museum of Natural History, explore attractions on the Upper West Side or in Central Park. Visitors to New York often run around from one major tourist site to the next, sometimes from one side of the city to the other, and in the process, exhaust themselves thoroughly. Ambitious itineraries often include something like coffee in the Village in the morning, lunch near MoMA, a couple of hours in the museum, a ride on the Staten Island Ferry in the afternoon, cocktails at the midtown hotel, a quick dinner, and then a Broadway show. It's a wonder people don't pass out at the theater. While sitting on the steps of the American Museum of History, consider exploring the Upper West Side and nearby sites of interest in Central Park. There's a better way to plan a New York trip. Consider grouping attractions together geographically. Several posts on this site address this recommended approach. The Wild West of the Tecumseh Playground Groupin
Read more

Museums in New York Open on Mondays

Please see this post for current announcements of reopenings . Please consult the museum websites for changes in days and hours. UPDATED September 23, 2020 Advance tickets required for many museum reopenings. Please check museum websites for details. • The  Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)  reopened to the public on  August 27 , with new hours for the first month, through September 27: from 10:30 a.m. until 5:30 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday to the public; and from 10:30 a.m. until 5:30 p.m.  on Mondays for MoMA members on ly. Admission will be free to all visitors Tuesday through Sunday, through September 27, made possible by UNIQLO. See this  new post on WOTBA for a sense of the experience attending the museum . •  New-York Historical Society  reopened on  August 14  with an outdoor exhibition, "Hope Wanted: New York City Under Quarantine,” in the rear courtyard. The exhibit by activist Kevin Powell and photographer Kay Hickman will highlight how New Yorkers weathered the quarantine
Read more

Taking a Constitutional Walk

A long time ago individuals going out for a walk, especially to get fresh air and exercise, often referred to the activity as "taking a constitutional walk." The word "constitutional" refers to one's constitution or physical makeup, so a constitutional walk was considered beneficial to one's overall wellbeing. (Or, as some would prefer to call it, "wellness.") The phrase is more common in British literature than in American letters. As early as the mid-nineteenth century, many American commentators expressed concern that their countrymen were falling into lazy and unhealthy habits. Newspaper columnists and editorial writers urged their readers to take up the practice of the "constitutional" walk. One such essay, " Walking as an Exercise," originally printed in the Philadelphia Gazette and reprinted in New England Farmer , Volume 11, 1859, urges the people of farm areas to take up walking. City dwellers seemed to have the
5 comments
Read more

The High Line and Chelsea Market: A Good Pairing for a Walk

(revised 2017) The advent of spring, with its signs of growth and rebirth, is apparent both on the High Line , where volunteers are cutting away the old growth to reveal fresh blooms, and inside the Chelsea Market, where new tenants are revitalizing the space. A walk to take in both can become an exploration of bounty and surprise, a sensual walk of adventure and sustenance. A good pairing for a walk: The High Line and Chelsea Market Walking the High Line for a round trip from Gansevoort to W. 30th and then back again adds up to a healthy 2-mile walk. Regular walkers of the elevated park look for an excuse to go there. Especially delightful is showing off the park, a model of its kind, to visitors from out of town. A stroll through Chelsea Market. Time check. If you haven't stopped into Chelsea Market lately, you may want to take a detour from the High Line at the stairs on W. 16th St. and walk through the market for a quick assessment or a sampling. Among the sampli
Read more

14 Useful Mobile Apps for Walking New York City

Texting and walking at the same time is wrong. Talking on the phone while strolling down the street is wrong. Leaving the sidewalk to stop and consult the information on a cellphone, preferably while alone, is OK. What's on Walking Off the Big Apple's iPhone: A List Walkmeter GPS Walking Stopwatch for Fitness and Weight Loss . While out walking, Walkmeter tracks routes, time, speed, and elevation. This is an excellent app for recording improvised or impromptu strolls, especially with many unplanned detours. The GPS function maps out the actual route. The app keeps a running tally of calories burned while walking, useful for weight loss goals. Another welcome feature is the ability to switch over to other modes of activity, including cycling. An indispensable app for city walkers. $4.99  New York City Compass , designed by Francesco Bertelli, is an elegant compass calibrated for Manhattan, with indications for Uptown, East Side, Downtown, and West Side. While facing a cert
2 comments
Read more

Visiting New York on a Monday

Mondays are OK. Let's have a look at some of the museums open Mondays - • American Museum of Natural History • Jewish Museum • Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) • National Museum of the American Indian • Neue Galerie • Guggenheim Museum • South Street Seaport Museum Any of these museums could be paired with a nearby restaurant or bar, making a complete full afternoon or day in New York. Monday is especially good for a museum visit, because the crowds tend to be thinner, and restaurants, too, tend to be less busy than on a weekend. A fun museum and bistro walk on the Upper West Side would be a combination of the American Museum of Natural History and the nearby Cafe Lalo on W. 83rd St. I also would suggest a pairing of the Neue Galerie with a nearby cafe, but the two cafes inside the musuem are so good, why go anywhere else? Image above: The Guggenheim on left and Beaux-Arts townhouse on right. View from E. 88th St. by Walking Off the Big Apple.
Post a Comment
Read more

Spring Training: Conquering the Hilly Terrain of Northern Manhattan

Visitors to the Northern Manhattan neighborhoods of Washington Heights and Inwood may realize at some point that we don't call them the "heights" for nothing. Walking a street uptown can involve a steep climb. In several places, the difference between elevations is so great that "step streets" are required. The step street at W. 215th connects Park Terrace East with Broadway below. Photo from February 29, 2016. The W. 215th Street step street in the Inwood neighborhood (above) connects Park Terrace East, a residential street high above Broadway, with the busy thoroughfare below. The nearby Isham Park sits on high land that was once a family estate. The climb to get there makes it feel like a secret park. There are nearly a hundred of these step streets in New York City, with many of them over a hundred years old. There are 63 step streets in the Bronx and 20 in Washington Heights and Inwood.* The city is currently renovating some of the more popularl
Read more

A New York Spring Calendar: Blooming Times and Seasonal Events

See the UPDATED 2018 CALENDAR HERE . Updated for 2017 . At this time of year, thoughts turn to spring. Let's spring forward to blooming times, the best locations for witnessing spring's beginnings, and springtime events in the big city. While the occasional snow could blow through the city, we're just weeks now from callery pears in bloom and opening day at the ballpark. In The Ramble, Central Park. mid-April Blooming Times •  Central Park Conservancy's website  lists blooming times within the park. During the month of March we begin to see crocus, daffodils, forsythia, snowdrops, witch-hazel, and hellebores. Species tulips will emerge in several places, but the Shakespeare Garden and Conservatory Garden are particularly good places to catch the beginning of Spring blooms. Central Park near E. 72nd St., saucer magnolia, typically end of March. •  Citywide Blooming Calendar from New York City Department of Parks & Recreation April is u
Read more