The "9th Street Commmunity Garden" on Avenue C and 9th.

Something that is easy to miss when living on Manhattan is green areas and proximity to nature. My first months here I lived just a few blocks from Washington Square Park, which is one of the bigger parks on the island. But it hardly felt like untaimed wilderness.

I realised pretty quickly that the only place that felt like a real breathing hole is Central Park. There you can almost forget the traffic and the skyscrapers for a while.

Therefor I was pleasantly surprised when I discovered the amount of gardens after moving to the East Village. You never have to walk more than a few blocks here without finding a gap between two buildings and here trees, flowers and other plants are growing and being tended to by volonteers.

As it turned out my new apartment is facing one of them and I took a walk there the other day. It almost felt a bit wild, and how it looked – you can see in the photo.