With the intent to provide visitors with universal access to all of its horticultural displays, the renovation of the New York Botanical Garden’s Oak Collection offered the opportunity of designing a pathway system through the collection for the first time. Visitors who stroll the collection will now be able to take respite at seating overlooks which have been carefully nestled into existing ledges and where they are rewarded with spectacular vistas of the rolling topography of the collection. The patterning of the bluestone paving quietly evokes the geological forces that shaped the site. Major consideration has been given to mitigating the sights and sounds of the adjacent Bronx River Parkway through subtle earthwork and screen planting. Working with the Garden’s horticultural staff, understory woodland plantings of native shrubs were located to better define the collection and additional locations for specimen oaks were identified.