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Bet You Didn’t Know These NYC Attractions Were Green
New York City aims to eliminate its net greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, and you can see those sustainable-minded efforts throughout the five boroughs. Some of the City’s most popular sights showcase innovative efforts to protect the planet: there’s a park suspended above city streets; a sea of solar panels on a museum exterior; and a geothermal system that warms and cools historic St. Patrick’s Cathedral. To see these and other green attractions, view our gallery below; for more content on sustainable travel in the City, visit our Green NYC guide.
Photo: Brittany Petronella
The High Line
The High Line is an abandoned elevated rail line transformed into a horticultural oasis. Opened in 2009 and expanded multiple times since, the park conjures a calming haven in the midst of metropolitan grit. The popular trail has created a habitat for birds and insects; it’s naturally cooling; and its greenery provides shade and oxygen for city dwellers.
Courtesy, The Farm at Jacob K. Javits Convention Center
Jacob K. Javits Convention Center Green Roof
The Javits’ marvelous 6.75-acre green roof, completed in 2014, attracts wildlife, provides insulation that cuts the building’s energy use by 26 percent, and absorbs stormwater, preventing runoff that overwhelms storm drains. It also has a farm for crop growing and a number of beehives. Plus, it’s darn pretty to look at. Visitors can arrange a tour at javitscenter.com.
Photo: BSE Group
Barclays Center Green Roof
Barclays Center has life above and beyond sporting events and concerts—literally. On top of the structure is a 3-acre green roof whose sedum plants flower in summer and that has environmental and noise-dampening benefits. A street-level green roof, also covered by sedum, slopes over the venue’s subway entrance.
7 Line. Photo: Daniel Harel
Mass Transit
Traveling the thousands of miles of NYC’s subway and bus routes is eminently low-impact; if city riders drove instead, they would create 15 million metric tons more emissions each year. The system is more than a century old and has faced major infrastructure challenges, but public officials are working to fix them. Meanwhile, the City continues to add zero-emission buses to its fleet and has greatly expanded its bike-share program since a launch in 2012.
Photo: Marley White
Brooklyn Children’s Museum
This museum’s 2008 building earned a Silver LEED certification for its eco-friendly features, which include solar-generated electrical power, recycled rubber flooring and geothermal heating and cooling. The venue also teaches kids about ecology through hands-on exhibits.
Rosemary's Midtown. Photo: Daniel Krieger
Green Restaurants
Restaurants like Family Meal at Blue Hill New York City and the Marshal (which also burns wood rather than gas and uses wind power for electricity) source from local farms, taking advantage of fresh produce and meats while avoiding the waste of shipping food long distances. Some spots, like Roberta’s, Rosemary’s and Bell Book & Candle, grow herbs and veggies on-site, and Brooklyn’s Rhodora Wine Bar strives to be zero waste, focusing on natural producers, tinned fish and a dedication to recycling and composting.
Photo: Gabby Jones
Gowanus
The Gowanus Canal is the unlikely center of an environmentally friendly renaissance. Atop Whole Foods, powered by solar energy, a rooftop farm grows lettuce sold in-store. Nearby, Big Reuse stocks reclaimed architectural materials and furniture. The canal itself is embarking on a cleanup that will add public green space as well as storage tanks for sewage.
Photo: Alex Lopez
Battery Park City
Horticulturalists manage the neighborhood’s parks without pesticides and follow rigorous low-impact practices. A large-scale composting operation generates fertilizer and “compost tea”—a special liquid fertilizer made by culturing liquid with compost—used to improve soil and ward off bugs. Think of it as probiotics for plants.
Photo: Christopher Postlewaite
St. Patrick’s Cathedral
St. Patrick’s Cathedral has a cutting-edge geothermal heating and cooling system, completed in February 2017, that trims the church’s carbon emissions by 94,000 kilograms annually. The underground temperatures of 10 wells, some drilled to a 2,200-foot depth, are used to cool and warm the building, sometimes simultaneously.
Photo: Christopher Postlewaite
Brooklyn Navy Yard
At Brooklyn Navy Yard, known for soundstages and studios, some 3,000 solar panels generate 1.1 million kilowatts of electricity. Brooklyn Grange, which helps develop rooftop farms, is based in the Navy Yard, as is the Naval Cemetery Landscape, part of the Brooklyn Greenway and a home for pollinators and rare birds.
Courtesy, Grand Hyatt New York
Hotels
The City has asked buildings to cut greenhouse gas emissions 40 percent by 2030. Nineteen hotels—including the Hyatt Grand Central New York and The Peninsula—have signed on. Through upgrades like high-efficiency boilers and LED lighting, these venues are shrinking their carbon footprints.
Photo: Julienne Schaer
Empire State Building
In 2009, the Empire State Building’s owners completed a green-minded retrofit of the iconic 1931 skyscraper. Improvements like highly insulated windows and a micro-targeted temperature control system have reduced energy use by more than a third since the renovation—a case study showing that an old classic can learn new, green tricks.
Photo: Tagger Yancey IV
Roosevelt Island
The island has few cars, plenty of parks and a slew of cutting-edge green buildings. Cornell Tech’s in-progress campus includes the “net zero” Bloomberg Center and “The House,” the world’s largest LEED-Platinum passive house structure. Tour the campus, which has 2.5 acres of publicly accessible green space.
Courtesy, Greenery NYC
Vertical Green Walls
Tadao Ando’s magnificent building at 152 Elizabeth Street features a green wall that’s 55 feet high by 99 feet wide and changes color with the seasons. The Union Square location of makeup store Innisfree has a 1,820-square-foot vertical garden with nearly 10,000 plants. There’s also a large green wall at Pier 35 on the East River. Such installations improve air quality, cool temperatures and look great.
Photo: Paola Chapdelaine
Governors Island
Governors Island is an exemplar of adaptive reuse. Sustainability highlights include a teaching garden with vegetables, fruits and herbs; and a composting operation complete with “we’ll eat anything” goats. In 2021, for the first time ever, Governors Island remained open to the public year-round. There plans for it in 2029 to become the hub for the Center for Climate Solutions, a space for climate research, education and innovation.
Photo: Max Touhey
Whitney Museum of American Art
The Whitney Museum's building has garnered kudos for its environmentally conscious architecture. It received LEED Gold certification for its energy-saving measures, green roof, recycled materials used in construction and public spaces that encourage community interaction. There are even two beehives on the roof.
Photo: Lucia Vazquez
Broadway Initiatives
Through efforts led by the Broadway Green Alliance, Wicked has switched to rechargeable batteries for microphone packs—saving more than well over 100,000 batteries since the change in 2008. In addition, the Gershwin Theater and other Broadway venues have begun using LED bulbs for their marquees; over 100,000 have been replaced, eliminating 800 tons of carbon emissions each year. Encore!
Photo: Andrew Frasz
Hudson Yards
This development’s first completed building, 10 Hudson Yards, received LEED Platinum certification. Hudson Yards is also the first LEED Gold certified neighborhood in Manhattan. Residential structures use low-VOC paints and organic-waste collection for composting. The complex contains 14 acres of gardens and public spaces, rainwater-collection infrastructure to reuse 10 million gallons per year and an on-site, hyperefficient power plant. Its 5 acres of greenery are home to 200 trees, 28,000 plants and 225 species of pollinators like bees and butterflies.
Photo: Julienne Schaer
NYC LEEDs the Way
NYC’s LEED buildings are models of sustainable urban architecture. Battery Park City’s The Visionaire has rooftop gardens, solar power and rainwater recycling, and the nearby Verdesian building was the first residential building to get a platinum LEED rating. One World Trade Center is one of the world’s tallest LEED-certified buildings. NYC’s green affordable housing includes the Bronx’s Arbor House (Platinum LEED), with a rooftop hydroponic farm.