2. Tompkins Square Park

Tompkins Square Park East Village-NYC New York-Untapped Cities
This is (almost) where it all started. Patti Smith, a recent runaway from New Jersey, had met Robert Mapplethorpe twice before their lucky encounter in this East Village park. Walking through Tompkins Square Park after a date with an older writer, Patti recognized Mapplethorpe in the park. Desperate to leave the date, she ran up to Mapplethorpe, asked that he pretend to be her boyfriend, and dashed off with him. This time, they stuck to each other. The park became a center of the anti-establishment, New York punk movement that would hold Smith as an idol.