• Exhale

  150 Central Park South, 212-249-3000; exhalespa.com

  Most New York yoga classes take place in grungy rooms that hardly inspire transcendence. So it’s extra-nice to enter the new Exhale through sliding 200-year-old Asian doors, ground yourself on Indonesian-wood floors, and stare from your upward dog at marble pillars and a high ceiling draped with billowing light-green gauze. Detoxifying tea is available, and the spacious locker rooms are stocked with seaweed and green-tea cleanser. After a vinyasa, anusara, or power yoga class, extend your bliss by crossing the street for a stroll in Central Park.

From the 2004 Best of New York issue of New York Magazine