Bethesda Terrace & Fountain

Bethesda Terrace is Central Park's one piece of grand architecture, and its designers spent it well: a double staircase descending from the Mall to a plaza on the Lake, with the Angel of the Waters — Emma Stebbins's 1873 bronze, the park's first major public artwork by a woman — rising over the fountain at its center. Rowboats drift past behind her. The Ramble's trees pile up across the water.

The arcade beneath the terrace is the secret masterpiece: a vaulted passage ceilinged with nearly 16,000 patterned Minton tiles, the only place in the world they were ever installed overhead. Musicians favor it for the acoustics; late on a weekday you might get a cellist, the tile glow, and almost no one else.

Yes, it's the park's most photographed spot, and yes, it earns it. Come at 8 a.m. when the plaza belongs to dog walkers and the light slides across the carved birds and fruit on the staircase piers — Jacob Wrey Mould's stonework deserves a slow look.