I was just in New York City and discovered Greenacre Park, a tennis-sized park on 51st Street between a synagogue and apartment building.

Greenacre Park was opened in 1971, and was underwritten and is managed by  the Greenacre Foundation, which was founded by Abby Rockefeller Mauze, one of the children of John D. Rockefeller, and a philanthropist of some stature.

Photography isn’t allowed in the park, so all the pictures I took were from the street. However, you can get a sense of the park’s layout: an elevated, covered section on the left, a central courtyard, and stairs on the right leading down to a lower level.

The centerpiece is the waterfall opposite the entrance. I really love the fact that it has these apartment buildings as a background.

It effectively drowns out all street noise, though when you’re moving something like 2500 gallons a minute over granite blocks and carefully-placed stones, you’re going to be able to generate some white noise!

There’s also a little brook running along one side.

One of the real pleasures of great cities, are these small parks, these green spaces in which one can find a respite from urban life. They’re one of my favorite features of London, and I discovered several parks or temples in Tokyo that function the same way.