Imagination Playground, Brooklyn

The name of this spacious playground refers not to the blue-block-filled kind of imagination but rather that of tall tales and storytelling. A bronze sculpture of a dragon that seems to pop right out of a book is the park’s main water feature (water flows along the dragon’s back). And in 1997 the Ezra Jack Keats Foundation commissioned a sculpture of Keats’s beloved character Peter and the boy’s dog, a fixture that’s now a popular spot for organized storytimes. Stages of various sizes, used for tot-friendly theatrical productions in the summer, and animal cutout masks that kid thespians can peek through seal its reputation as one of Prospect Park’s most cultured corners.