Happy Trails to You: Six Wonderful Walks Around NYC in October

By Troy Segal

Celebrate the gloriously invigorating days of autumn in New York City with these upcoming walking tours — some urban, some bucolic.

The Artistic Set:  Get your fine-art fix with New York Gallery Tours’ themed visits. On Oct. 18, tour seven exhibits of David Hockney and other gay and lesbian artists’ work currently on display in Chelsea. The following week, on Oct. 25, there’s an exploration of the edgy — the avant-garde galleries of the Lower East Side.

Follow The Foliage: Who needs New England, when there are plenty of brilliantly hued trees around town? Maples, oaks, beeches — the New York Botanical Garden has ‘em all, and it’s offering a tour of its 250 acres Oct. 18 & 21. Or, glory in a sea of crimsons, russets, purples, and golds across the harbor: An Urban Park Ranger leads a fall foliage hike in Staten Island’s Bloomingdale Park, Oct. 18.

Downtown Doings: The southern tip of Manhattan, the oldest part of the city, offers many a glimpse into NYC’s history. Learn about the noted and notorious women who lived and worked there, from Nellie Bly to Jenny Lind, on a two-hour Victorian Society New York visit on Oct. 25. Relive some of the great stock market disasters with a Museum of American Finance-sponsored Great Crashes Tour around the Financial District, Oct. 18 (the 85th anniversary — almost — of the Crash of 1929, which marked the onset of the Great Depression).