For me, city parks serve mainly as mini-wildernesses, providing escape from the occasionally oppressive communion with my fellow beings that characterizes big city living. It's fairly logical, therefore, that I can't wait to go see the new exhibition by Bronx-born documentary photographer Joel Meyerowitz at the Museum of the City of New York. Entitled "Legacy: The Preservation of Wilderness in New York City Parks," running through March 21st, the show evidently features giant, gorgeous prints of wild-looking parks all over the city. The City Room blog at the New York Times has a brief article with a tantalizing slide show here.

On reflection, though, the show is an odd phenomenon. The parks as art? Going to a city museum to see parks? Parks that are even in the same city as the museum? An interesting intersection of culture and nature. On the other hand, culture and nature are always intersecting -- and that's pretty much what city parks are for, although sometimes I like to pretend otherwise. But there have been some great cultural park stories recently.

On the culinary front, the NYC Parks Department is currently wrangling two sets of tenants: the current and future operators of the Tavern on the Green in Central Park. Between them all they don't seem to be able to figure out when one group is going out and the other coming in, or even who owns the name "Tavern on the Green" to begin with.

Then there's the potential smoking ban. Dr. Thomas A. Farley, the New York City health commissioner, wants to make it illegal to smoke in the city parks, including beaches. This story even made news in the UK. I never enjoy finding myself next to a smoker (and the butts certainly create a lot of trash), but obviously this rule would be ridiculously hard to enforce. Talk about an activity that's only illegal if you get caught.

But my favorite recent park-culture interface is historical. The Parks Department just finished a reportedly $2 million restoration of Lt. Joseph Petrosino Park in Little Italy, which should make the diminutive park more deserving of the name of its diminutive, but larger than life, namesake. I'd never heard of Lt. Petrosino (b. 1860, d. 1909), but I'm glad I came across him; he sounds like quite a character.

Incidentally, that newly renovated park is currently hosting a giant dome made of white hula-hoops, installed by the Storefront for Art and Architecture in honor of its own 25th anniversary. Underwired has a photo of the dome here, in which it looks like the moon is setting right in the middle of the park.

I bet Joel Meyerowitz could take a pretty good photo of that.