Living in the most exciting city in the world doesn’t mean you have to give up your connection to nature. Nowhere is this more true than at the East Village apartments at EVGB. With a 19,000-square-foot roof deck, and private balconies and gardens, life at EVGB is an indoor/outdoor experience. And with the East Village’s jewel-like neighborhood gardens and greenmarkets, the presence of the natural world is woven into the fabric of your neighborhood and your community.

First planted on an empty lot in the 1980s by neighborhood volunteers, 6BC Botanical Garden is a place that is so much more than a pause of green amidst the bustling city. It is a garden whose spirit and magic could not exist anywhere but the East Village. The carefully tended plants from near and far are a perfect reflection of the human population that maintains it. Featured in Vogue as one of “7 Secret Gardens Where You Can Find Reprieve in New York City,” it was described by Michaela Bechler as: “Marked by an black iron fence decorated in ivy, this botanic garden is an educational space, with a horticultural library and wide variety of plants, and focuses on neighborhood beautification and community programming. Follow the red brick path for flowers of all sorts paired perfectly with rock sculptures and intimate spots to enjoy a picnic or finally crack open your summer reading.”

Because this is a community garden, it is just as much a place to connect with your neighbors as it is a place to unwind and breathe. And because this is the East Village, the garden has become a kind of outdoor gallery and performance space where poets give readings and artists install work that is in conversation with the plants and the life of the garden itself. On view this summer is “Whispers in the Grove,” an installation by artists Kathy Creutzburg, Natalia Lesniak, Mirabai Kwan Yin, and Nicola Anderson. It’s an interactive sculpture inspired by the ways that trees communicate underground through their root networks and fungal growths. Perhaps the biggest draw to the garden is membership and the benefits that go along with it, including the chance to steward your own plot of land. You can also take inspiration from the garden, along with shoots and seeds, to cultivate plantings of your own on your balcony or garden at EVGB. This kind of involvement with fostering plants takes your connection to nature in the city to a whole new level.

While the garden at 6BC is strictly botanical, a wealth of greenmarkets in the neighborhood will give you direct access to local and organic produce from nearby farms. Just blocks away from the East Village luxury rentals at EVGB are the Stuyvesant Town and Tompkins Square Greenmarkets, where you can find locavore prizes like heritage breed pork from Flying Pigs Farm and European-style sheep milk cheeses from Valley Shepherd Creamery. Life at EVGB can make you feel like you don’t have to choose between nature and the city.