In 1963, the Italian-born sculptor Costantino Nivola filled a playground that covers an entire city block with avant-garde abstractions. In the middle of an Upper Manhattan housing project, there are cuboid cutouts sculpted in cement, a fountain made with two diamond-shaped boulders, concrete play horses, and a sand-casted relief carved high into a wall. In the northeast corner, a matriarchal figure known as “The Nanny” rises from the ground. The artist’s sculptures were built in an era when urban development incorporated art in its effort to uplift communities and express democratic ideals. “A work designed for a public space is less a work of art than a civic act,” Nivola once said. “It concerns the ways in which we live together, and in which we influence each other.”

Get a piece of the south back with a chicken biscuit from Pies & Thighs.

Explore NYC’s new and enduring architecture, engineering marvels and the revitalized waterfront from the teak decks of Classic Harbor Line’s elegant motor yachts.

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.

Grand Central is big and beautiful and it also periodically hosts free cultural events - poets at typewriters custom-composing poems on demand - or Alvin Ailey dancers performing in Artist, Nick Cave's horse suits!