New York Botanical Garden: As part of a multiyear plan to restore the bucolic 250-acre site in the Bronx, the Botanical Garden just opened the Leon Levy Visitor Center, with an expanded shop and new cafe, among other amenities. Designed by Hugh Hardy, the complex of four elegant glass-steel-and-stone pavilions creates a handsome gateway to the sublime National Landmark gardens and park beyond (nybg.org ).
Brooklyn Museum: Speaking of gateways, check out the new entrance pavilion and plaza of this venerable palace of art, designed by James Stewart Polshek. Polshek’s curving steel-and-glass superstructure offsets the stuffy formality of the neoclassical stone facade and welcomes the public into a sun-splashed forecourt (brooklynmuseum.org).
Isamu Noguchi Garden Museum: Look for the reopening of the renovated museum in Queens next month, with a major show of the modern artist’s sculptural designs (noguchi.org). See you on the subway.
