New York

Perhaps New York City doesn't have the illustrious fall foliage of New England, but that doesn't mean we have to head north to find some. Green-Wood Cemetery has many trees turning yellow, orange, and red right now, and it's still one of my favorite "parks" in the city. (To be fair, it is basically a park because it's a Revolutionary War site and a National Historic Landmark, and therefore affiliated with the National Park Service, so there.) Green-Wood's virtues are many: it's never crowded (unless you count the permanent residents), its 478 acres of rolling hills are enough to get lost in (I accidentally walked half its circumference last weekend), it's impeccably kept, it's home to many birds and century-old trees, it's free, and it has some nice views of Manhattan. It's brimming with dead bodies, true, but you can't beat it for introspection on a cool, colorful October day.

Photo:  Sarah Enelow

Cemeteries are not for everyone. Well, technically, I guess they are. But there is a prejudice among the living, a widespread opinion that a walk in a park is healthier and more pleasant than a walk in a graveyard. And so, the magnificent, pastoral, parakeet-inhabited Green-Wood Cemetery remains quite empty of visitors. For those in the know, who may be found strolling up and down Green-Wood's rolling hills, under her flowering trees and around her lagoons, the thought of all those suckers claiming their four square feet of lawn at nearby Prospect Park seems laughable. Green-Wood is a Victorian garden cemetery, with a maze of lanes and paths cutting over and around and through the beautifully-maintained natural landscape. You could get lost here, which could be a good or bad thing (solitude and the feeling of discovery: Good Thing; the catacombs at dusk: Bad Thing). Start out by wandering freely, stopping to contemplate ornate monuments or sit on the grass and enjoy the peace and quiet. When you're ready, the detailed map of the cemetery in NFT's Brooklyn guide can lead you back to the main entrance and city life as you know it.

Photo:  Ilona Virostek