Brooklyn Botanic

Nikki and I spent some time at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden a few weeks ago, just before moving out of Bed-Stuy and east into Bushwick. We took the subway to get there, though it wasn’t very convenient: Twenty minutes on foot, six stops, one long transfer between lines. To get home, we just walked, an hour-long hike through the heart of Brooklyn.

The Botanic Garden is beautiful. Built on top of an ash dump in the northeast corner of Prospect Park in 1910, the territory bursts with leafy groves, rose gardens, lily ponds and striking architecture.

Most of what we saw was unknown to us, exposing our limited grasp of botany. In some ways, the garden itself felt foreign, sprouting perfect and wholesome from the dusty streets it borders on the east. In reality, though, Nikki and I are the interlopers, clinging to Brooklyn for a time, until we disappear, leaving behind a sometimes fractured, sometimes complicated, often radiant city.