Jefferson Market Garden

On our list of the best activities in New York.

The plot held a market from 1833 until 1873, then a courthouse and a jail, and by 1931 the city's only Women's House of Detention, an 11-story Art Deco tower designed by Benjamin Levitan. Neighborhood campaigning got the detention center closed in 1971 and demolished by 1974, and the next year horticulturist Pamela Berdan, drawing on Frederick Law Olmsted's ideas, laid out the third-acre garden that replaced it. It's open free from April through October, Tuesday to Sunday, and allows drinks but not food among the plantings.