“Before They Were Parks”

It’s hard to imagine Manhattan without the Great Lawn or Brooklyn without the rolling hills of Prospect Park—but that’s exactly what curator Jonathan Kuhn, director of art and antiquities for NYC Parks & Recreation, forces us to do in this examination of the reservoirs, cemeteries, empty lots, industrial sites, tenements and nature preserves that are now the city's most peaceful places. Among the 36 parks highlighted in the exhibition are Bryant Park, the Brooklyn Promenade and Washington Square Park (along with an 18th-century gravestone recently discovered there).