Columbus Park

This is where outdoor mah-jongg and domino games take place at bridge tables while tai chi practitioners move through lyrical, slow-motion poses under shady trees. Judo-sparring folks and relaxing families are also common sights here, in this active communal space originally created in the 1890s and popular with local residents. Visitors are welcome, though (or at least ignored).

An interesting note is that the Five Points neighborhood, home to the city’s first tenement slums and the inspiration for Martin Scorsese’s Gangs of New York, was once located at the foot of where Columbus Park is now. The ‘five points’ were the five streets that used to converge here; now you’ll find the intersection of only Mosco, Worth and Baxter Sts. (Another Columbus Park perk is its public bathroom, making it the perfect place for a pit stop.)