Hey, getcha fresh air — and fresh fruit and fresh veggies — in Central Park.
The city is expanding its eat-healthy Green Cart campaign by allowing food vendors to operate at three choice locations around the park, beginning next month, officials said.
The carts will offer high-nutrition produce at competitive prices, such as three bananas for just a buck, half-pound boxes of strawberries for $2 and mangos for $1.50.
They will compete with longtime snack-food carts in the park in an effort to get New Yorkers to eat smarter.
“I know we are trying to vary our food offerings and include healthy and diverse options,” said a spokesman for the Parks Department.
But New Yorkers — being New Yorkers — were of different opinions.
“Who wants fruit carts clogging up the sidewalks up here?” said Fifth Avenue resident John Frearson, 53.
“New York’s about bagels, shish kebabs, hot dogs and other unhealthy things, right?
“If people wanna buy healthy food, surely they’d just go to the supermarket. Bring on more junk food!”
But another Fifth Avenue denizen, Elizabeth Davidson, 42, differed, calling the carts “a fantastic idea.”
“We’re all aware of the obesity epidemic, and healthy eating is a great way to get rid of the problem,” she said. “The bigger the stall, the better.”
The carts will be in operation not far from culture magnets like the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the American Museum of Natural History: parkside on Fifth Avenue between East 80th and East 81st streets, Fifth Avenue between East 86th and East 87th Streets, and West 110th Street between Lenox Avenue and Central Park West.
The produce will come from the Hunts Point market, and the carts will be furnished by a firm called United Snacks.
“The fruit carts, there’s very little downside to it,” said company owner Cliff Stanton.
He said the carts would even offer fresh fruit salad, a novelty for pushcarts. The Parks Department-approved list of prices says the boxed salad will go for $3 a pound.
Stanton noted that the park already has 30 carts peddling snack food — hot dogs, nuts and ice cream — and there are requests to add another dozen by the summer.
Whether eat-healthy food will sell at parkside locations is debatable.
“I think there’s already enough street vendors around as it is,” said Martina Jones, 49, of East 90th Street. “It’s a beautiful area here, and I think people come to Central Park and walk the Museum Mile for quiet time, not to buy food.”
But Jacob Holman, 32, of East 88th Street, said, “Well, I guess Central Park oozes freshness and cleanliness, so the fresh fruit stalls will certainly fit into the area.”