Prospect Park

The same designers as Central Park, ten years later, on a site they liked better and with fewer constraints. They regarded Prospect Park as their superior work and most landscape historians agree.

The difference you feel: fewer straight lines, more sudden changes of landscape, and a much stronger sense that you have left the city. Central Park always has buildings on the horizon. Large parts of Prospect Park do not.

• The Long Meadow — 90 acres of continuous open grass, the longest meadow in any US urban park. On a Saturday it is thousands of people doing thousands of things and it still doesn't feel crowded.
• The Ravine — Brooklyn's only remaining forest, with a man-made watercourse running through a genuine wooded gorge. Unpaved, hilly, and easy to forget where you are.
• The Lake — 60 acres of water at the southern end, with boating, the Audubon boathouse and the Lakeside rink.

BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn! runs at the Lena Horne Bandshell from June into September — a full season of free outdoor concerts, all ages, first come first served, with a handful of benefit shows that are ticketed.

It is one of the oldest free performing-arts festivals in the country and the programming is serious. Arrive early for anything with a name you recognise; the lawn fills.

Elsewhere: the Soul Summit dance parties in Fort Greene Park nearby, and free programming across the park all season.