Marilynn K. Yee/The New York Times No need to leave the city to peep leaves. This is Inwood Hill Park in Manhattan.Updated 6:06 a.m. | Foliage season in the Catskills has come and gone. Vermont maples are brown or bare.
But you’re in luck: New York City’s leaf-peeping season is hitting its peak.
This weekend should be the most colorful of the year in much of the city, said Tim Wenskus, a natural resource manager with the city parks department.
One of his favorite spots is the Aqueduct Trail in Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx.
“You have a little bit of topography, where you can get something close to a vista,†Mr. Wenskus said.
New York City is big enough and varied enough that a place like Alley Pond Park in Queens might peak a week after Van Cortlandt.
At High Rock Park on Staten Island, Mr. Wenskus said, early-turning ash and elm are being joined by the yellows of persimmon and tulip tree, orange-tipped oak and the deep blood-scarlet of red maple
But with 2.5 million trees on public land in the city, you probably have your own favorite.
Tell us: Where do you go in this town to see the leaves turn?
Here’s what you need to know for Wednesday.
WEATHER
Eh. Just a cloudy day with a high of 60. Clearer tonight, but Halloween might be drippy.
COMMUTE
Subways: No delays. Click for latest status.
Rails: Fine so far. Click for L.I.R.R., Metro-North or New Jersey Transit status.
Roads: No major delays. Click for traffic map or radio report on the 1s.
Alternate-side parking is in effect today and tomorrow but suspended Friday.
COMING UP TODAY
- The final mayoral debate between Bill de Blasio and Joseph J. Lhota, at 7 p.m. Watch on WNBC-TV. Listen on WOR-AM 710.
- Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly and Deputy Mayor Cas Holloway speak at a panel, “The Measured City: Using Data to Improve New York City Government†at New York University this morning.
- The New York Review of Books presents a two-day conference on privacy and the Internet, at the Scandinavia House on Park Avenue. [Free, registration required]
- It’s Mexican Day of the Dead. Build an altar, learn how to make a sugar figurine and dance, at a daylong celebration in East Harlem. 11 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. [Free, though you can buy food]
- The citywide architecture festival Archtober is almost over. Tour the building of the day, the Queens Central Library. 1:30 p.m. [Free, click to register]
- That’s no pumpkin, it’s a basketball. The Knicks open at home against the Bucks. The Nets start the year in Cleveland.
- For more events, see The New York Times Arts & Entertainment guide.
IN THE NEWS
- The former of home of a company in Ridgewood, Queens, that sold radioactive material for atomic bombs may become the city’s next Superfund site. [New York Times]
- A rabbi at a youth center in Beverly Hills was arrested on charges that he sexually abused boys as a youth worker in Brooklyn in the 1990s. [KABC]
- A City Council measure to raise the age for buying cigarettes to 21 now covers e-cigarettes, too. [Daily News]
Scoreboard: Rangers beat Islanders, 3-2. Devils beat Lightning, 2-1.
Joseph Burgess contributed reporting.
New York Today is a morning roundup that stays live from 6 a.m. till about noon.
What would you like to see here to start your day? Post a comment, email us at nytoday@nytimes.com or reach us via Twitter using #NYToday.
Find us on weekdays at nytoday.com.
