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A wide expanse of green at the northern end of Battery Park City, Rockefeller Park is unmissable thanks to its open-air, columned pavilion designed by Demetri Porphyrios. The park’s dog-free, manicured lawn is a key spot for picnics, sunset-watching, and smaller, summer concerts. The lawn itself is bordered by a stone path and wide enough for benches, fishermen cutting hunks of bait, and joggers taking advantage of reach-out-and-touch-it views of New Jersey. Join backpack-toting brainiacs from nearby Stuyvesant High School and designer-clad moms clutching toddlers at the fountain covered with anthropomorphic bronze sculptures of Tom Otterness's public art piece The Real World. For the less whimsically inclined, there’s a more traditional (and well-endowed) statue of a nude Ulysses at the park’s corner. — Candace Taylor

The Real World, an odd little universe installed in 1992 in Rockefeller Park's playground, isn't exactly secret, but even locals tend to forget it's there. It's a fascinating place for kids: Part sculpture park, part picnic garden, Tom Otterness’s teeming world of bulbous little capitalists, prols, and bohemians is all about money—children call it “Penny Park” and climb all over it. The first one to find the guy hanging off the lamppost should win an ice cream.