Manhattan is packed. Over 1.6 million people call New York’s most populous borough their home. Buildings squeeze together like sardines craning their necks to get a whiff of fresh air, a commodity that runs scarce when New Yorkers run to and from work twice a day. Signs - ads, art, information - protrude from every facade.

On one hand, the stimuli erases the possibility of boredom. If you’re not swept by the flood of human diversity that washes the streets, lured by bakeries and hole-in-the-wall burger joints, or pulled like a puppet on strings by car horns and rare voices that cut through the buzz, you’re either a seasoned New Yorker or taking sensory deprivation drugs. The endless stream of stuff warps time perception on hour-long walks, making them feel like five-minute excursions.

But when a finite space is as full and as busy as this little island, it can be hard to clear the space inside your own head. Overwhelmed, antsy, frustrated, cramped - all feelings that descend on me as I dip and dodge through sidewalk traffic in midtown, yearning for the relative countryside within Central Park.

My recipe for next-level thinking calls for equal parts peace and pandemonium. I can’t crack into the safe of thoughts worth saving without space. Lucky for me, SS+K lives down south by the water, where the wind blows and I can see straight to Williamsburg.

- Cameron Kokes