68th St Between 1st Ave and 2nd Ave

As far as I'm concerned, there's two types of parks in New York City. The first is your typical "nature-style" park with plenty of trees, green spaces and carefully-placed walkways (think Madison Square, Bryant and of course Central Park). The second (and far more common) is the "urban" park which I would argue is really more of a playground environment (and Google Maps seems to agree with that assertion, as these 'parks' do not show up as green on their maps). What these community squares lack in aesthetics they almost certainly make up for in functionality.

St. Catherine's Park between 68th and 67th Street is one of the latter examples. Taking up a solid half of 68th Street, the park has a great layout including jungle gyms, large basketball courts and just general space to hang around in.  Juxtaposed with the great open-ness is the restrictive, terrifying nature of all the rules posted on the outside gates. The park shares the southern half of the block with the Julia Richman Education Complex (also known as Talent Unlimited High School for reasons that escape me).

The north side of the block is a rather random mixture of residential units, a hospital, and small commercial shops. There were two buildings in particular that drew my attention. The first, closer to the park, was just encrusted with vines and trees. If it didn't seem so lively, I would almost assume it was abandoned. The second building, closer to 2nd avenue, was simply impressive in it's scale. It certainly is far from the largest building (in any dimension) that one could come across in the city, but something about it's facade gave it a grand presence and imposing nature.  

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