Good vibes bar with some of the best food-next-to-your-drink in the city.

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.”

This is another neighborhood favorite, especially for Sunday brunch which is consistently great.

Easing in the park, the city facing you and traffic honking its way over the Brooklyn Bridge. Best enjoyed on a late-summer afternoon/night.

The oldest, best, and probably dirtiest underground train system in the world. 24 hour service that links me to anywhere I want to go in the city.