Astoria Park

Astoria Park drapes sixty green acres down a slope to the East River at Hell Gate — the turbulent channel where the harbor's tides collide — and its skyline is made of bridges rather than towers. The RFK (Triborough) Bridge vaults directly over the park's lawns, and just upstream stands the Hell Gate Bridge, the great 1916 steel arch that carried the title of world's longest and later lent its proportions to the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

Under all that steel sits the city's largest and oldest public pool, a WPA landmark from 1936 that held Olympic trials the summer it opened. The rest is pure Queens weekend: runners on the shore path, barbecues on the hill, old men fishing the rail, and the water boiling past at six knots. Sunset from Shore Boulevard, with Manhattan small and golden beyond the river framed by two bridges, is one of the outer boroughs' quiet masterpieces.