High Rock Park and Moses' Mountain

Once owned by the Boy Scouts Council, then the Girl Scouts Council, High Rock Park is today the centerpiece of the Staten Island Greenbelt. Though only 94 acres, it provides one of New York City's best "walk in the woods" experiences. Stride through the Gretta Moulton Gate, and you feel you've really left the craziness of the city behind.

In late March, last fall's leaves still lie thick on the ground, with the new year's foliage yet to appear.

But green shoots underfoot announce that spring has sprung.

And so do the frogs in Loosestrife Swamp, a short walk from the park's entrance. (Turn up the volume!)

Follow one of the marked trails west, cross Manor Road, and you'll bump into Moses' Mountain. This 260-foot hill is made of rock excavated for the construction of the Staten Island Expressway and named, of course, for NYC's legendary Parks Commissioner Robert Moses. Along with Gretta Moulton and others, the Power Broker had a hand in preserving this area as parkland in the 1960s.

We missed the quick left turn to the path that spirals up the hill, and ended up circling the rise for a while before we found the way.

God wasn't helping.

But we encountered a couple of like-minded outdoorsfolk who pointed the way. A short climb later, we summited.

Eureka!

The "360-degree panoramic view" lauded on the Greenbelt website is, let's be honest, underwhelming.

But my sense of accomplishment was surprisingly strong at having climbed such a tiny "mountain." I think that was because of where we were: Staten Island. New York City. High above sea level, without being in a building. Without a building in sight. In the presence of nature's elements, witnessing their reckoning with the changing seasons. Lifting our bodies into the clean air.

Postscript: The day we visited High Rock Park and Moses' Mountain we had lunch at our favorite Staten Island restaurant, the fabulous Sri Lankan eatery Lakruwana. Since then, the horrific mass murders in Sri Lanka have put that country on the map in people's minds around the world. Park Odyssey would like to extend our appreciation, and sympathies, to NYC's Sri Lankan community. Whatever your religion and whyever you came, we're glad you're here.

Ford Foundation Atrium

Indoor parks in New York City? Well, yes – after a fashion. We've already seen a mobile micropark (the adorable Healing Garden, which lives inside a trailer). On a much grander scale is the Ford Foundation Atrium, inside the Foundation's headquarters on East 43rd St.

The Ford Foundation Center for Social Justice inhabits a 12-story box of steel, granite, and glass built in the 1960s. The award-winning landmarked building was immediately recognized for its creative architecture. As an aesthetic object it stands taller than countless much bigger NYC office buildings.

Shortly after the building opened in 1967, the Architectural Record opined: "Kevin Roche's design for the new Ford Foundation headquarters is a unique symbolic expression that designates a new kind of urban space...highly charged with a symbolic content that invests the most ordinary aspects of the building's life with an almost ritualistic significance."

Equally impressed, Ada Louise Huxtable wrote in the New York Times that "this civic gesture of beauty and excellence...is a grant of some importance [to New Yorkers] in a world where spirit and soul are deadened by the speculative cheapness of the environment." The Pulitzer Prize-winning critic couldn't have known at the time how thoroughly "speculative cheapness" would come to infect nearly every aspect of our country, well beyond the bounds of the business world.

The winter garden inside welcomes the public Monday through Saturday, except when special events are held.

A reflecting pool at the lowest level provides a focal point and a sheen of calm to a busy day.

A slow walk up and down the atrium's paths and stairways, winding among its dozens of plant species, provides a sweet and unusual respite from the pace of the city. Any time you're on the East Side in the vicinity of Tudor City and the UN, rest your soul at this indoor oasis, a park in all but name.

Ready to speed up again? Watch the Ford Foundation's time-lapse video of the blank space becoming a refulgent garden.