Best way to get there is by shuttle bus, which charges a small fee. It's worth taking a trip in the spring to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden to see the famous cherry blossoms, magnolias, and the Japanese garden. Enter Central Park on the footpath at West 81st Street, turn right when you reach the road. Just past the marionette theater, you'll see the entrance to the Shakespeare Garden , with 120 of the plant varieties that are mentioned in Shakespeare's plays. A quiet place to get inspiration for that Lit Hum paper or to have a picnic with a friend.
Wildlife art is on exhibit in an indoor gallery.
In addition to a large collection of animals, the zoologists and veterinarians there conduct research on animal behavior, conservation genetics, population biology, ecological analysis, wildlife nutrition, and reproduction of endangered species. Wednesday is a good day to go, when admission fees are voluntary. It's a long ride to Coney Island in Brooklyn, but once there you can visit the penguins, seals, otters, walruses, sea turtles, sharks and beluga whales at New York's Aquarium for Wildlife Conservation . This is a very funny site. There's a gift shop just inside the 78th Street entrance of the American Museum of Natural History .