If you’ve been chasing the Bushwick Collective and DUMBO Walls all spring, here’s your assignment for the final week of May: head uptown. The Audubon Mural Project — one of the most quietly ambitious public art initiatives in New York — has been quietly adding birds to the walls and roll-down shutters of Hamilton Heights and Washington Heights for more than a decade, and the project’s recent expansion into community gardens across all five boroughs makes this exactly the right moment to walk it.

And while you’re mapping out the week, lock in the five NYC DOT Art Community Commissions still on display through spring and summer. These were installed last June across all five boroughs, and a few of them come down in the next few weeks. Once they’re gone, they’re gone.

Don’t Miss: The Audubon Mural Trail, Washington Heights & Hamilton Heights

Here’s the premise. In 1841, John James Audubon — naturalist, painter, and the man whose Birds of America folio became one of the great American art works of the 19th century — moved to a then-rural estate at what is now West 158th Street and Riverside Drive. He died in upper Manhattan in 1851 and is buried in the cemetery at Trinity Church Cemetery on Broadway and West 155th Street.

The Audubon Mural Project takes the species Audubon painted that are now threatened by climate change and puts them on the walls of the neighborhood he lived in. More than 100 species have been painted on surfaces ranging from bodegas to barber shops to apartment buildings to roll-down corrugated metal shop shutters. The visual range is wild — some panels are photorealist portraits, some are abstract, some are full-wall block-color compositions — but the through-line is the bird, and the message is the climate threat.

The National Audubon Society and NYC Parks recently expanded the project into GreenThumb community gardens across the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Queens — 21 new murals in total. So this is no longer a single-neighborhood walk. It’s a five-borough hunt.

How to walk it: Start at the 157th Street 1-train station and walk Broadway uptown. The murals concentrate between roughly 150th and 160th Streets, with significant clusters along the cross streets running east toward Amsterdam and west toward Riverside Drive. The NYC Bird Alliance runs guided tours of the project — check their events calendar if you’d rather walk it with someone who can name the species without checking a phone.

What to bring: A working camera, comfortable shoes, and the willingness to look up. Half the murals are above eye level. Many are on roll-down shutters, which means the best viewing window is early morning or Sunday before the shops open.

The Five Boroughs, Five DOT Commissions Worth Tracking Down

In June 2025, NYC DOT announced five new public artworks installed across all five boroughs as part of its Art Community Commissions initiative. Some are coming down soon. Here’s the cheat sheet.

Manhattan — Fitgi Saint-Louis, “Aunties.” Located at West 124 Street and Lenox Avenue in collaboration with the West Harlem Art Fund. On display through April 2026 — meaning if it’s still up when you visit, you’re catching the end of the run. Pair this with a walk through the rest of Lenox Avenue’s mural-heavy stretch.

Bronx — Yafatou Sarr, “Weaving the Future: A Vessel of Water, Roots, and Community.” Located at the Grand Concourse and East Fordham Road. On display through June 2026. The piece is a six-foot-tall sculptural installation inspired by traditional African water vessels, adorned with intricate crochet, created in collaboration with the Concourse House community. This one rewards a slow walk-around — the crochet detail doesn’t read from a single angle.

Queens — IMAGINE (Sneha Shrestha), “About a Living Culture.” Installed at Diversity Plaza at Roosevelt Avenue and Broadway in Jackson Heights. Diversity Plaza is one of the great underrated public spaces in the city — a pedestrianized block that functions as the cultural living room of one of the most linguistically diverse neighborhoods on the planet. The sculpture earns its setting.

Brooklyn and Staten Island each have a commission as well — check the NYC DOT Art page at nyc.gov/dot for the full map.

Two NYC Parks Installations Worth a Detour

Yoni Alter, “Love Continuum.” Union Square Park, Manhattan. On display through June 1, 2026 — so you have exactly one week. If you’re at the Greenmarket Wednesday, Friday, or Saturday morning, you’re already in walking distance.

Annalisa Iadicicco, “OctoTrash.” Hunter’s Point South Park, Queens. A large-scale octopus sculpture made from discarded materials, on display through December 20, 2026. This one rewards the trip — Hunter’s Point South Park is one of the best waterfront parks in the city and the views back across the East River to Manhattan from Long Island City are unmatched. Take the 7 train to Vernon Boulevard-Jackson Avenue.

The Standing Recommendations

If you’ve never done it, the Welling Court Mural Project in Astoria, Queens (around 11-25 30th Avenue, accessible via the N or W train to Astoria-Ditmars Boulevard) remains one of the densest concentrations of large-scale mural work in the city, with pieces from more than 150 artists from New York and around the world. The annual Welling Court block party typically happens in June — when the previous year’s walls get repainted and the new season’s murals are unveiled. Stay tuned for date confirmation.

And the Bushwick Collective on Jefferson and Troutman Streets between Cypress and Knickerbocker Avenue is still cycling new murals constantly. The L train to Jefferson Street drops you a block away.

How to Play This Week

If you have one Saturday: walk the Audubon Trail in the morning, take the 1 train back down to Union Square for “Love Continuum” before it comes down June 1, and call it a day. That’s a complete uptown-to-downtown public-art arc with two zero-cost stops and the kind of mileage that justifies dinner.

If you have one Sunday: take the 7 to Hunter’s Point South Park for OctoTrash and the waterfront, then walk Vernon Boulevard north into Long Island City for the gallery scene. You’ll cover three boroughs’ worth of public-art sensibility in a single afternoon.

The murals are free, the parks are free, and the city is currently as visually loud as it gets all year. Go look up.