Hester Street Playground

When it was time to refurbish this park straddling the Lower East Side and Chinatown, its planners did something unusual: They enlisted the input of the Hester Street Collaborative, a grassroots group that works to transform neglected spaces into spaces the community can be proud of. The result is a superbusy playground with Asian accents (a swing set with the elegant curvature of a pagoda, teahouse-like enclosures), brick walls adorned with mosaic tiles made by local kids, neighborhood-friendly lighting, and exquisite equipment like a hoop-shaped spray shower and a pair of balancing tire swings.