The usable portion of this plaza, which encircles its host building along Livingston Street, Smith Street, Schermerhorn Street, and Boerem Place, is a triangular area located in front of the lobby at the corner of Boerem Place and Livingston Street. Two fixed black-tile planter structures contradict their exterior rugged image by presenting a delicate array of multi-colored annuals, along with six trees, in various ground- and waist-level recesses and trays. Hidden from street view on the planter’s interior walls are six built-in concrete benches. Perhaps in response to the fact that smokers have migrated to outdoor plazas and arcades as last refuges for lighting up, a sign prohibits smoking in a portion of this space.

Unlike most outdoor public spaces in Manhattan, the space here is part of a lower-rise physical fabric that includes the roughly eight-story slab of the host building, a bulkier older building across Boerem Place, and a row of four-story structures on Livingston Street. One block north along Boerem Place is Brooklyn’s civic space, including Brooklyn Borough Hall, a Greek Revival structure. In the distance down Adams Street, a continuation of Boerem Place, is a view of Manhattan and the Empire State Building.