Miracle on East 22nd Street

Just another day, another jack knife in New York City.

Just to the east of Union Square, home of endless chess games, farmers’ markets and mobby protests sits a tiny fenced pocket of trees known as Gramercy Park. While New York City is filled with unexpected islands of natural beauty within its dense urban setting,  Gramercy Park is unusual in that it is a private park. You must have a key to enter, a fact I learned earlier this week when I tried to follow someone into the park and watched them push the gate shut, locking me out.

New York has long been imagined as a parable of the haves and have nots, but in fact many of its finest institutions make a point of opening themselves to the wider public. The Metropolitan Opera has rush tickets for $25 and upper balcony seats for $37. If you go to Metropolitan Museum of Art and show a New York ID you can pay as little or as much as you want to enter.