Sustainable NYC: Attractions You Didn’t Know Were Green

A person tends to a vibrant rooftop garden filled with rows of green plants against a backdrop of tall city buildings. The sun is shining, creating a bright atmosphere. A greenhouse is visible to the left.

Courtesy, The Farm at Jacob K. Javits Convention Center

Jacob K. Javits Convention Center Green Roof

’ 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

.

Aerial view of the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. The arena features a distinctive brown, oval design with a green roof. Surrounding it are tall modern buildings under a clear blue sky.

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.

A subway train travels on an elevated track in front of a skyline featuring modern skyscrapers under a clear blue sky. A large billboard sign is partially visible on the left.

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 z

ero-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.

Bright, modern restaurant interior with wooden furniture and patterned tile accents. Tables are set with white napkins and glassware. Potted plants and decorative lights add warmth. Shelves in the background display wine bottles.

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.

A cyclist wearing a patterned shirt rides across a bridge in the foreground. The background features a city skyline with tall buildings under a clear sky, and a waterway lined with trees and red brick structures.

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.

Sunflowers frame a rooftop garden with people walking around. In the background, a city skyline is visible under a blue sky with scattered clouds.

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.

People are cycling on a paved path surrounded by grass and trees under a clear blue sky. Some wear backpacks, and one rides a go-kart. A few structures are visible in the background.

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 are 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.

Street view of a bustling theater district with multiple brightly lit marquee signs displaying show advertisements. Yellow taxis and pedestrians fill the busy street. Prominent signs include "Schoenfeld," "Jacobs," and "Booth" theaters.

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!

A modern urban scene with a wooden pedestrian bridge featuring a triangular pattern, stretching between high-rise buildings. Below, a bustling city street filled with cars. Lush greenery lines the path leading to the bridge.

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.

Skyline of New York City featuring the One World Trade Center surrounded by other skyscrapers. The buildings are illuminated by the warm light of the setting sun, reflecting on the calm water in the foreground.

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.