Bryant Park

Bryant Park is nine acres of French formal garden dropped into the densest office district in America — a single great lawn framed by gravel allées of London plane trees, with the marble back of the New York Public Library closing the eastern end. The park sits on top of the library's underground stacks; the lawn is literally the roof of several million books.

Its genius is furniture: thousands of movable green bistro chairs, which people arrange and rearrange all day into meetings, dates, chess matches, and naps. The programming never stops — free lawn movies on summer Mondays, ping-pong and pétanque in the allées, reading rooms under the trees — and in winter the lawn becomes a free-admission skating rink ringed by holiday-market stalls.