World Financial Center Plaza

With the yawning glass vault of the World Financial Center's Winter Garden behind it, the vast shimmering blue of the Hudson before it, and the tree-lined splendor of the Esplanade opening into it, World Financial Center Plaza is the bustling nexus of Battery Park City.

The fruit of a unique collaboration between artists Siah Armajani and Scott Burton, architect Cesar Pelli (who also designed the Winter Garden) and landscape architect M. Paul Friedberg, World Financial Plaza boasts such interesting flourishes as stone seating and, along the waterfront, metal railings inset with quotes from poets Walt Whitman and Frank O'Hara (singing the praises of New York City, naturally).

In the warmer months, the Plaza is flooded with joggers, seafaring types who dock their boats at the nearby North Cove Marina, and plenty of BPC residents attending family-friendly outdoor events, including free open-air concerts and a series of drive-in films hosted by the Tribeca Film Festival.

The Plaza is also home to plenty of restaurants, which offer outdoor seating during the prime-time people-watching months of April to September. Not a bad place to grab a drink, have a chat and watch the sun go down on the Hudson.

By Tom