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Manhattan

Gramercy & Union Square

A locked park, a farmers' market four days a week, and an old tavern on Irving Place.

Gramercy Park is the city's most famous fence. Samuel Ruggles drained a swamp here in the 1830s, laid out a private square, and sold the lots around it with the right to a key — and that arrangement still holds. You will almost certainly look in through the iron railings rather than walk inside, which is part of the pleasure: the gardens, the gas-lamp-era clubhouses on the south side, the brownstones in a historic district designated in 1966.

Irving Place runs south from the park to 14th Street, a short, leafy street of brownstones, a music hall and Pete's Tavern, which claims to be the oldest continuously operating bar and restaurant in the city and kept serving through Prohibition behind the front of a flower shop. O. Henry lived a few doors up and wrote the bar into one of his stories.

A few blocks west, Union Square is the opposite of a locked park. On Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays the Greenmarket fills its north and west sides with farm stands — apples and cider in autumn, ramps in spring — and the streets just north of the square, around 16th and 17th, have filled with serious Thai and Vietnamese dining rooms.

The iron fence and locked gates of Gramercy Park

Farm stands in Union Square four days a week

Irving Place's brownstones and a bar from the 1860s

Thai and Vietnamese dining rooms on East 17th Street

Local notes

Gramercy Park

Laid out by Samuel B. Ruggles from 1831 and fenced in 1833, the park is open only to keyholders who live on the square, plus members of the clubs and guests of the hotel facing it. The National Arts Club at No. 15, once Samuel Tilden's house, and The Players at No. 16, founded by Edwin Booth in 1888, sit side by side on the south side.

Union Square Greenmarket

GrowNYC's flagship farmers' market, open year-round on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays. Saturday mornings are the fullest. Go early for the best produce and the bakers' tables before they sell through.

Irving Place

Six short blocks from the park down to 14th Street, with Irving Plaza at 15th Street and Pete's Tavern at 18th. O. Henry lived at 55 Irving Place from 1903 to 1907; the story that he wrote 'The Gift of the Magi' in a Pete's booth is probably legend, but he did put the bar in 'The Lost Blend.'

Through the lens

Shoot Gramercy Park through the railings from the south side in late afternoon, when the light comes low along 20th Street and catches the Gothic Revival front of the National Arts Club. At the Greenmarket, early morning gives you crates and tents before the crowds; ask stallholders before close portraits.

Editorial draft — core details last reviewed October 13, 2026. Confirm practical details with the official site before you go.

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