“Oh, do you feel the breeze from the subway? Isn’t it delicious?” cooed Marilyn Monroe, her dress seductively aflutter, in the movie The Seven Year Itch (1955). Surely, the sex symbol would also relish other incomparable outdoor pleasures of summer in New York City.

Sidewalks and Rooftops
With 12,750 miles of sidewalks, 158,738 street corners and several million pedestrians traveling on foot every day, the action is always brisk at ground level. Two of the premium locations for people watching are the new car-free plazas in Times Square and Herald Square.

At this time of year, restaurants open their floor-to-ceiling front windows, set up café tables (sometimes shaded by market umbrellas) and invite diners to eat and drink without a roof over their heads. In Murray Hill, a large lunchtime crowd soaks up the sun and samples fine Italian fare at Salute! (270 Madison Ave., 1-212-213-3440). In Greenwich Village, the huge, airy outdoor café at Garage Restaurant and Café (99 Seventh Ave. So., 1-212-645-0600) offers microbrewed beers and thick, char-grilled 100-percent sirloin hamburgers. Meanwhile, at Rockefeller Center, Rink Bar (Fifth Ave. & 50th St., 1-212-332-7620) offers cool drinks and a light menu beneath the gilded gaze of the statue of Prometheus. On Lincoln Center’s Josie Robertson Plaza, Arpeggio Outdoors (Columbus Ave. & W. 64th St., 1-212-874-7000) serves a farm-to-table seasonal menu and also supplies a picnic lunch to enjoy in several new public spaces on the performing arts complex’s campus, including a sloping, second-story rooftop lawn.

In a vertical city, the higher you go, the more rarefied the air, figuratively speaking. Right now, some of the trendiest bars and lounges are ensconced on the rooftops of boutique hotels. Among the newest cloud-kissing cocktail aeries, Above Allen (Thompson LES, 190 Allen St., 7th fl., 1-212-460-5300) affords revelers an elevated perspective on the Lower East Side; Press Lounge (Ink48 Hotel, 653 11th Ave., 16th fl., 1-212-757-0088) has a 20-foot reflecting pool and 360-degree views of Downtown and Jersey City; Bar d’Eau (Trump SoHo, 246 Spring St., 7th fl., 1-212-842-5500) features a tile-lined swimming pool with waterfall and SoHo vista; Upstairs (The Kimberly Hotel, 145 E. 50th St., 30th fl., 1-212-702-1600) provides a wraparound sweep of Midtown; The Sky Room (Marriott Fairfield Inn and Suites–Times Square, 330 W. 40th St., 33rd & 34th fls., 1-212-967-9494) boasts LED lights on the ceiling that mimic the skyline as seen from this west-facing perch; and Top of the Strand (The Strand Hotel, 33 W. 37th St., 21st fl., 1-212-448-1024), designed by a Sex and the City set designer, flaunts breathtaking, picture-postcard views of the Empire State Building.

The most thrilling lookout points, however, are also pinnacle experiences of many visits to New York City. Perched 850 feet above street level, the top deck (70th fl.) of Top of the Rock Observation Deck at Rockefeller Center (30 Rockefeller Plaza, 1-212-698-2000) features open-air, wide-open panoramas in every direction. Meanwhile, on a clear day from the 86th- and 102nd-floor observatories of the city’s tallest and most iconic structure, the Empire State Building (350 Fifth Ave., 1-212-736-3100), you can see as far away as Massachusetts and Pennsylvania. .

Urban Edens
Even in this metropolis of concrete, steel and glass, green-thumbed locals tend their crops in nearly 600 community gardens, flowers flourish along the Park Ave. median and in Rockefeller Center and peacocks preen on the grounds of the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine.

Two world-class manicured gardens are paradise for nature enthusiasts. From bonsai to floral cherry trees, the Brooklyn Botanic Garden (900 Washington Ave., Brooklyn, 1-718-623-7200) is known for its strength in Japanese horticulture. Eleven years older and roughly five times larger than its Brooklyn counterpart, The New York Botanical Garden (200th St., at Kazmiroff Blvd., Bronx, 1-718-817-8700) features a 50-acre swath of original forest and a restored Victorian-era glass conservatory. Current shows address endangered plants and the edible garden, but the biggest attention-grabber this month may be the profusion of fragrant daylilies.

The newest urban oasis is the High Line (Gansevoort to W. 20th sts., btw 10th & 11th aves., 1-212-500-6035), a park built on a former elevated railway, impeccably landscaped with 210 species of perennials, grasses and trees. Among the regular activities here is a weekly stargazing session with telescopes provided by the Amateur Astronomers Association of New York (every Tues at dusk, weather permitting).

On the Waterfront
Land and rivers meet along 578 miles of New York City coastline, where summer highlights include sunning, cycling along the 32-mile greenway that hugs Manhattan Island, watching pleasure boats ply the waterways and tie up in marinas and enjoying the River to River Festival, which brings hundreds of free dance, music, film and visual art events to Lower Manhattan’s waterside parks.

In the middle of New York Harbor—roughly 800 yards off the southern tip of Manhattan— lies Governors Island (1-212-440-2202), a U.S. Army and Coast Guard base from 1800 to 1997. Now a public park, accessible Friday to Sunday via a free seven-minute ferry ride aboard Governors Island Ferry (Battery Maritime Building, 10 South St., btw Whitehall & Broad sts.), it has more than five miles of car-free paths and roadways on which to bike, a 92-acre historic district, children’s activities, an organic fruit and vegetable farm and a full calendar of free concerts. Here you’ll also find Water Taxi Beach Governors Island (1-866-987-2542), a 20,000-square-foot sandy retreat with volleyball nets, spectacular views of Manhattan, Brooklyn and New Jersey and the Backstage Café, where the One Mile Salad features veggies and greens grown within a mile of Governors Island.

Acres of Green
About 29,000 acres of New York City real estate are considered green spaces—parks and recreation areas that provide plenty of room to stroll, bike ride, jog, shoot hoops, toss a Frisbee or simply commune with nature. In band shells and amphitheaters, performing arts festivals are staged and special events are held on grassy expanses.

With a manicured lawn and plantings, gourmet kiosks, French carousel and free Wi-Fi, Bryant Park (Sixth Ave., at W. 42nd St., 1-212-512-5700) is especially attractive in summer, when free classes range from knitting (every Tues, 1:30 p.m.) to tai chi (every Tues & Thurs, 7:30 a.m.); and special events include chats with famous authors (Jul. 14, Sebastian Junger) and movie screenings during the HBO Bryant Park Summer Film Festival (every Mon at sunset, thru Aug. 23).

A hub for chess players and street performers, Washington Square Park, located at the foot of Fifth Ave., is best known for its iconic fountain and arch. As the final phase of a massive reconstruction project nears completion, the 52nd Washington Square Music Festival (enter at MacDougal St. & Waverly Pl.,1-212- 252-3621; every Tues, 8 p.m., Jul. 6-27) brings free classical, jazz and pop music to the park’s northwest quadrant.

The mood is often more reflective in Battery Park (Manhattan’s southern tip), where memorials, statues and monuments honor American heroes and others of local import, such as explorer Giovanni da Verrazano, the first European to sail into New York Bay in 1524, and Dutch colonists who established Nieuw Amsterdam in 1624.

The centerpiece of any Manhattan summer is, of course, Central Park (59th to 110th sts., Fifth Ave. to Central Park West), an 840-acre playground with paths for cyclists, a modern zoo, an old-fashioned carousel and dozens of statues portraying historic and fictional personalities. There’s also an abundant supply of real-life action figures: new moms pushing babies in jogger-strollers, Rollerbladers, marathon runners, binocular-toting birdwatchers and weekend athletes playing pickup basketball. Professional entertainment options include international music and dance at the Harlem Meer Performance Festival (Charles A. Dana Discovery Center, Fifth Ave. & 110th St., every Sun, thru Sept. 5); symphonic classics by the New York Philharmonic (Great Lawn, enter at E. 79th St. or W. 81st St., 875-5709, Jul. 13-14); Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale and The Merchant of Venice (with Al Pacino) performing in repertory (Delacorte Theater, southwest corner of Great Lawn, 539-8500, thru Aug. 1); and an all-star lineup of singers and dancers at Central Park SummerStage (Rumsey Playfield, Fifth Ave. & 72nd St., 360-1-212-2777). Let the heat wave begin!