14. The Lotus Garden

Perched atop the salmon-brick Columbia condo tower’s parking garage, The Lotus Garden is an improbable oasis in the sky. Covering one-sixth of an acre with three feet of soil, mulched paths meander through blooms of towering hydrangeas and delicate underbellies of violets while trees and shrubs sprout peaches and blueberries. Ponds are inhabited by schools of fish, darting between water lilies and lotuses while robins and doves raise fledglings and hummingbirds drink from the flowers. Terra-cotta fragments salvaged from the facades of 1910s theaters, which had once occupied the site, line the flowerbeds. Maintained by a nonprofit group of about 30 gardeners, each year from April to November, its gates open to the public on Sunday afternoons. During OHNY Weekend, landscape experts will be on hand to explain the activity of creating and preserving this midair botanical wonder.

The site will be open on Sunday, October 20th from 9:00AM to 1:00PM.