The Ford Foundation Atrium houses a miniature tropical rainforest. Its glass walls create a temperate environment for the garden, while also creating a seamless flow of green space between the atrium and Tudor City Park to the east. The Ford Foundation Gallery shines a light on artwork that wrestles with difficult questions, calls out injustice, and points the way toward a more fair and just future. The atrium is open to the public Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Saturday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. when the gallery has an exhibition on view.

Bill Brand presents an animated movie to passengers on the B and Q subway trains coming into Manhattan from Brooklyn. The project was modeled after the zoetrope, a 19th-century optical toy, which animated images inside a revolving cylinder, so that they appeared to move when viewed through narrow slits. Brand mounted 228 hand-painted panels in self-contained, illuminated units along the three-hundred-foot platform. Hop on a Manhattan-bound B or Q train at the Dekalb Avenue stop (corner of Dekalb Avenue and Flatbush Avenue Extension). Look out any window on the right side of the train.

The Ear Bar has been in New York longer than any of us. In a city of vacuous fleeting trendy bars the Ear Bar (which is really called the Ear Inn but I've never called it that) is the real deal.

I read that the design of Central Park's curving spaces was a Romantic counter to the geometry of Enlightenment-era gardens. I heard this design was influenced by landscape painting, where its foreground, middleground, and background constantly shift as you walk the paths. I find new pockets and features every time I'm there. One of my favorite spots is with the Central Park Dance Skaters, a group that roller skates in circles all day to vintage electro funk. These characters generously lend you the feeling of being in your own 1980's New York film.

I love this excellent independent arthouse theater in the Lower East side. Metrograph projects archive quality 35mm and independent films. Tastefully decorated, there is also a candy store, bookstore and restaurant.