![]() The Hallett Nature Sanctuary, on the south-east edge of New York’s 843-acre park, was sealed off in 1934 and turned into a wilderness area for migrating birds. The last time this secret corner of Central Park was open to the public, Bonnie and Clyde were on the run from the FBI, and Franklin D Roosevelt was in the White House. Go flower-spotting at a secret urban wilderness Ready player one, your game is about to begin. Eccentric exhibitions have titles like ‘Haunted Golf, with a Z’, and ‘The Universe is a Small Hat’ which gives some indication of the downright bonkers world of indie gaming that Babycastles is helping to nurture. Here you can try out quirky games you can’t play anywhere else, and admire the endlessly expressive world of contemporary digital art. Everybody has their inner geek, and this DIY collective is dedicated to feeding it, as well as supporting emerging artists and promoting greater diversity in the gaming industry. So why not make like Mario and bounce your way over to Babycastles, a New York non-profit gallery dedicated to the weird and wonderful interface between art and indie video games. Give your pixels a work out at Babycastlesįrom the sparse pixels of Pong to searching the streets for virtual Pokémon, in just a few decades video games have come to define the very world that we live in. ![]() Miniature Tropical Forest, Ford Foundation Center for Social Justice, New York The building reopened in 2018 after a two-year renovation, introducing a new garden design fully open to the public, and the addition of a public art gallery exhibiting works on social injustice. A transparent cube of glass, granite and Corten steel, it was radical for its time, and its enclosed atrium garden was the first of its kind in the United States. The remarkable building was commissioned by Henry Ford in the 1960s as the headquarters of his humanitarian organisation dedicated to helping those less fortunate in society. A dozen floors of offices wrap around the glorious atrium garden, where walls of internal windows afford the building’s worker bees invigorating views over the green canopy of trees and plants arranged around pools and on raised terraces. Who knew the urban jungle of New York City had an actual jungle nestled within? More incredibly, this incongruous Eden is squeezed inside an office building, the Ford Foundation Center for Social Justice on East 43rd Street. So, once you’ve conquered the Empire State Building and paid your respects to lady Liberty, here are six lesser known gems to seek out, guaranteed to inspire, surprise and help you belong that little bit more to New York City. New York wears its soul on its sleeve, a city where the streets are paved with creativity and every building has stories to tell and secrets to reveal. ![]() “One belongs to New York instantly”, said legendary writer and New Yorker Tom Wolfe, referring to the city’s knack of sweeping up new arrivals in its hypnotic embrace.
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