Step out of Tottenham Court Road Tube station, south exit. Above you is an atrociously out-of-place oversized apartment block, all around you is the chaotic intersection of Charing Cross Road, Oxford Street, Tottenham Court Road, and the A40. Hundreds of people individually raised for decades to serve the noble purpose of launching themselves in front of you with every step you take.
Look left and slip through the southeast street into a newly purpose-built plaza that cost millions and serves nobody. Ignore the soulless food spots and attempt to cross the A40 - at least three buses will attempt to mow you down here.
When the queue for Kanada-Ya appears in the distance, look right and there's a tiny entranceway to an alley you'd never otherwise notice.
Keep going, and in 10 seconds all of the above becomes meaningless.
I'm enamoured by hidden spots in city centres that totally nullify the chaos around them. The above example is St Giles in the Fields, a 900+ year-old Anglican church and garden that has preserved its sanity amongst the chaos in every direction around it. Outside of 6am when the campanologists go wild, there's no noise, no advertisements, absolutely nothing to suggest you're in a concrete jungle that becomes more hostile with every passing year.
Plus, if you've truly made it in life, you can rent out the Vestry House for the fanciest-looking dinner of your life with up to 11 other cool people. I will report back on this when I can.
In Dublin, the best one I've found is the Garden of Remembrance. A cute spot that nobody knows about, just 2 minutes' walk north of O'Connell Street, possibly the shittiest main street of any city I've ever witnessed. The Garden is nice though. Pads the noise beautifully.
In New York, it's at the end of Greenwich Avenue, the diagonal street that everyone mistakes on a map for Broadway. You buy all your cool stuff at Greenwich Village, then go northwest to Jackson Square to escape it all. Unfortunately this is where I found out via a homeless man that Donald Trump was just elected for the second time, so it loses a point for this.
Where I currently live though? I'm less sure. The only public park in the city centre is under reconstruction, and will emerge with more concrete and less grass than ever before.
There's a park 10 minutes away from the centre with a Hebrew-inspired name, ducking away from a local intersection designed and built by lunatics, but has little else going for it.
I don't know where I'm going with this. Short of some overdue corporate terrorism, I don't know how we can create a convenient block of green space in our city. But I would dearly like to try.