Walk Upon Famine-Ravished Ireland
New York, New York
In 2002 the Irish Hunger Memorial was dedicated, an inventive piece of public monument-making that was lost in the media glare of the World Trade Center rubble only two blocks away. The memorial is actually an acre of real, rocky landscape recreating County Mayo from 1840s Ireland, complete with a stone walls, native vegetation, a pagan "standing stone," and a bona-fide ruined stone cottage. It's a typical terrain from the era of the Potato Famine, which killed over a million Irish and forced a million more to emigrate to New York City.
The entire plot of land rises 25 feet above the street; you have to climb a ramp to walk across it, and at the far west end is a cantilevered overlook with views of Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty.
This elevated urban oasis would make a great spot for a rustic picnic if it weren't for, you know, all the hunger and death.