FT readers: the spaces that make you feel good in your city

One of my favourite places in New York is the Museum of Modern Art. For a couple of years, I worked in a bank office located on Madison and 54th Street and it became a ritual to visit MoMA during my lunchtime. It didn’t take me more than five minutes to get there, so I had lunch as quickly as possible just to stay there longer. For two years or so I fed my soul with that peaceful routine: looking at my favourite paintings and spending some time and money at the bookstore before I got back to work. I’ve always seen art as a religion that can relieve pain and make us stronger. Art extends the experience of living in infinite ways, making it better, longer, happier and more interesting.

There was something that made me believe I belonged to that place. For that brief moment, I owned those masterpieces and I knew they would be always there for me, anytime I needed them. That’s what I miss most since I moved from New York. (Website; Directions)

— Elisabete Monteiro, artist, Miami Beach

The clubby warmth, pipe-lined ceilings, deep leather chairs, classic cocktails, decadent mutton chops and hard-boiled eggs at the bar of Keens Steakhouse all bring me an unmatched happiness. The moment I walk in the door I am reminded of my early 20s, when I was starting my career in the fashion industry. At the time, I couldn’t afford to be there but would take in the incredible aroma of the steaks, chops and mutton parading by me as I sipped a handcrafted Old-Fashioned at the bar and enjoyed a free egg or two, just so I could forget the difficulties of starting out in NYC and feel like I was part of the Old New York club.

Now 61, I bring my young family with me to Keens when I visit Manhattan to give them a glimpse of the younger me. I still have an Old-Fashioned at the bar, with a free egg or two, before enjoying a giant mutton chop in the dining room that has hosted New York’s elite and US presidents for decades. (Website; Directions)

— Dorian Dickinson, global business development executive, Chicago

A special place in Central Park is the Contemplation Circle in the Arthur Ross Pinetum. A semi-circle of benches under magnificent pine trees. White-throated sparrows (above) flit in and out of the bushes behind you and sing as they work. Woodpeckers inspect the crevices of the towering trees. A red-tailed hawk watches you from on high. A unique spot in the park to pass a few contemplative moments in the city that never sleeps. (Website; Directions)

— Eugen Beer, vintage-menu art conservation, Los Angeles

I have become very fond of the park outside City Hall in downtown New York. It has a very European feel to it and some very good public art. Around it, the Woolworth Building and a few other iconic New York architectural gems give it a unique character of its own, plus it’s also the gateway to Brooklyn Bridge. A perfect balance between solace and New York bustle. (Website; Directions)

— Francis Power, musician, New York City

This pedestrian and cycle path runs from Battery Park at the southern tip of Manhattan all the way up the west side of the borough to Dyckman Street. This was the closest notable outdoor space to my Manhattan apartment during the first Covid-induced lockdown in spring 2020 and thus became a daily point of refuge and recalibration while out walking or running.

Points of interest on the Greenway include the World Trade Center site, Chelsea Piers (and various other converted piers), the Irish Hunger Memorial and the new Little Island, while the High Line is less than a block away. The Greenway also connects to the East River Greenway at Battery Park, from where you can traverse the east side Manhattan. (Website; Directions)

— Joseph Smart, accountant, New York City

I have been to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York at least a hundred times, and there are so many places within it which are special to me. Yet whenever I visit, I am inevitably drawn to the Medieval Sculpture Hall — a high vault designed to evoke the interior of a Gothic cathedral, flanked by columns and arches on either side and topped by large windows through which natural light streams in. The central piece is an 18th-century choir screen from Spain, an exquisite work of gilded wrought iron over 50ft tall.

It is the most tranquil and contemplative place within the museum (except, perhaps, during the Christmas season, when it hosts the Met’s Christmas tree) — it is more hushed, like a Zen garden.

Sometimes I’m convinced I can still smell the sputtering candles that lit devotions centuries in the past. I ponder the faces of the various Madonnas (often doting, sometimes grieving), pious saints, self-satisfied bishops and smug patrons, and peer a millennium ago into “a world lit only by fire” yet depicted with a humanity as fresh as if I took a street shot with my phone today. When I step back on to Fifth Avenue and rejoin our discordant, disordered millennium, I always feel better for having made the visit. (Website; Directions)

— Jim Brucculeri, investor, New York City

The architect IM Pei created a truly majestic structure in the East Building. There is a thrill and a tension as one walks past the knife-edge corners of the exterior (impossible to appreciate without seeing at least a photo), but once you walk inside, it is all solidity and reassurance, in the form of sandstone, and at the same time, openness and air, attesting to the architect’s magnificent use of light. The artwork is, of course, a joy.

The East Building is also where my wife and I went on our first date. And, childlike as it may sound, the moving walkway connecting the East and West Buildings never gets old! (Website; Directions)

— Scott, private equity operations, Greenwich, Connecticut

While trail-running in the Presidio, I like to pause at the lookout at the top of the National Cemetery, watching from between eucalyptus trees the blue bay and its white sail boats, with the majestic Golden Gate Bridge stretching toward the Marin Headlands and Sausalito. This peaceful place between nature and buzzing city anchors me in the present moment, a content participant to this snapshot in time and space. Then I start running again, recharged and reset, grateful to the men and women who kept us safe in the past and to those who are now carrying us through the pandemic. (Website; Directions)

— Marie Denison, aerospace engineer, San Francisco

Wrigley Field is my happy place. With just a 25-minute walk from my home, I can gather with 35,000+ friends and watch the Cubs battle their opponents on the baseball diamond, or catch one of my favourite bands jamming out their deepest cuts. With a multitude of pubs in the neighbourhood, I can grab a local brew beforehand and afterwards with these same friends, too. What more does a person need? (Website; Directions)

— Michael Estes, Banking, Chicago

In summer 2021, I discovered the incredible joy and peace of mind I gained by setting up my portable chair on the lawn in Lincoln Park, which extends from the base of my apartment building northward along Lake Michigan. I would also always bring coffee and dark chocolate that I would savour for the two or three hours that I spent reading the FT and other newspapers and academic articles on the financial markets, a subject I teach in law school and business school here and on the West Coast.

As the summer changed into the fall, the recess of children during the day in the park from the neighbouring Latin School further enhanced my hedonistic repose. I had become so addicted to this routine that I would venture out even in November when temperatures became unseasonably warm. Remember, this is in Chicago! (Website; Directions)

— Alexander Dill, law- and business-school lecturer, Chicago

One of the best places in the world is located in a nondescript strip mall next to an auto body shop, tucked away from the rest of Anchorage. Even some locals do not know about it. I enjoy a combination of Velvet Thunder dark-chocolate and Silky milk-chocolate ice cream. One scoop is plenty and two require a designated driver. It does not matter if it is an endless sunny Arctic summer day or the depths of a cold dark winter — that chocolate combination is pure heaven. It is a happy place for our family. (Website; Directions)

— Matt Schechter, investment adviser, Girdwood, Alaska

Walking along East Coast Park at sunrise makes me happy. The heat of the day hasn’t kicked in as yet, the birdsong is louder than the traffic, the water and greenery are a treat for the eyes, and the mood is calm and contemplative. There is even a glimmer of hope on the horizon in the form of more frequent flights landing at Changi! (Website; Directions)

— Jyotsna Mishra, tech executive-turned-docent, Singapore

Not far from the Appian Way is this grotto surrounded by a sacred wood of holm oaks. It was legendarily linked to the nymph Egeria (who gives her name to the mineral water bottled from the natural spring nearby), who was said to have offered wise counsel (or other inspiration) to Rome’s legendary second king, Numa Pompilius.

In the second century CE, the grotto was built up to become a monumental fountain in a vast villa complex belonging to Herodes Atticus: magnate, senator, tutor to Marcus Aurelius and subsequently consul. It is the very picture of the Romantic ideal of the verdant and bucolic ruins of the “Campagna Romana”. And it’s a 15-minute Vespa ride from my apartment. (Website; Directions)

— Agnes Crawford, Rome guide, Rome

Haga Park, near central Stockholm, is more than a park — it is also a national natural reserve. Each day, thousands of people use the park, to stroll, jog or simply relax on a warm summer’s day or play winter sports with their kids in the snow. My favourite sporting activity is to jog around the lake on a spring or summer morning. My favourite spot is a pier on the lake that faces the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences on the other side, as well as an 18th-century greenhouse. From there, I can observe the changing colours of the seasons — and the fascinating colours of the Nordic skies. (Website; Directions)

— Thor Nielsen, global sales, Stockholm

Matosinhos beach in Porto with its Edificio Transparente is no secret, but my special relationship with it is — or has been until now. I first went there after a strange period in my life, when over the course of two months I had been fired, ended an eight-year relationship and moved out of my apartment. I came to Porto for a potential new love, but instead I had found a new me.

On Matosinhos beach, after my first surfing lesson, I had felt like myself for the first time in a very long time. Afterwards, I went to the Edificio Transparente, right next to the surf school. The modernist building has a few improvised beach bars in front of it, which set the scene for impromptu get-togethers, when the sun is not too high or the wind too strong. I stayed in Porto for a whole month and returned there often. I haven’t had the chance to return yet — but I will. (Website; Directions)

— Andreea Visan, architect, Vienna

While recovering from Covid-19 last April, I rediscovered the Parc André Citroën in the 15th arrondissement. Once the site of a Citroën car factory, this park is now the centre of a rejuvenated area of Paris along the left bank of the Seine.

The park itself is divided into an open central area on the river and several small gardens with exotic plants and flowers that provide quiet corners. Especially on a sunny spring day, it is a beautiful place to stop by to read a book, meet friends or just quietly admire the trees and flowers. Contrary to other Parisian parks, this one allows for some areas of relative “wilderness” on its borders and does not always feel as artificial as the more famous Luxembourg, Tuileries or Monceau parks.

Some of the remnants of the old factory have been kept and redesigned in a modernist way that sits very nicely with the trees and plants. Along with some beautiful residential buildings surrounding the park, this gives it a very unique atmosphere — an overview of a modernist Paris that never really took off. Also, as it tends to be overlooked by tourists and favoured by local families, it is a great place to escape the usual crowds seen in the city’s other green spaces. After 10 days of isolation and Covid symptoms at home, and then several months of curfew/lockdown, just spending time in this park felt like living again. (Website; Directions)

— Jules Le Roux, lawyer, Paris