You have visions of parks and brunches, train journeys and crosswords, matinee performances and moonlit strolls.
To walk through this 19th-century masterpiece of landscaping, illuminated by the seasonal display of sunlight, is to soak up the peerless vision of the park's designers, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux.
Even if the law is changed to allow more commercial uses, any new proposal would have to address issues of height, noise, traffic, as any major development proposal would, as well as conform to the original vision of the park as a place primarily for public enjoyment.
This is the best time of year to appreciate the vision of the park's designers, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, as well as their paradoxical use of artifice and men wielding shovels to create what appears in many places as an accidental Eden.
"It was funny because these two had a certain vision of our park, seeing it as very English and quaint," Simon Poulter, curator of the project, told local newspaper the Echo.
These lived spaces also challenge the new vision of Park Hill being partially realised by Urban Splash: for, although the developer will eventually provide 200 new flats that will be available for social rent, the majority (around 600) will be sold on the open market in what the architectural critic Owen Hatherley has called a form of "class cleansing".
The project is the brainchild of Dr. T. Allan Comp, a historian working for the Office of Surface Mining in the Interior Department, who has a vision of building parks throughout Appalachia and has raised $400,000 to make it work.
Its almost industrial grid of supports and scaffolding nearly dissolves as it is penetrated by visions of outdoor park and living creatures.
People wanted parks to escape to, and Olmsted's vision of a democratic park was transformed, by degrees, into something either merely picturesque or crassly utilitarian.
"My dad would be so excited that his vision of a family park behind the Statue of Liberty has continued to blossom in so many ways," said Mr. Pesin, whose father died in 1992.
