Mid-October is peak color in New York and also when our shade math starts diverging hard from a naïve "tree = shade" assumption. Half the deciduous canopy is on its way down. The walks below are the ones that still deliver — picked because they pair color with surviving overhead cover.
Stay Cool dims tree-canopy shade automatically from November through March, so the walks you save now will re-score correctly later. The picks here are graded for THIS week — re-route anything saved more than a few days out.