Ah, that view. 

There are few places providing a more panoramic sweep of Vancouver than heading down the hill on Knight Street at 37th Avenue — the full view of the mountains and the port as you enter the core of the city, a reminder of what all the hype is about.

To the east of that stretch of road is Kensington Park. It too is designed to showcase that view, a gentle hill the dominant feature to the park, with some artwork near the top showing silhouettes of the skyline to reinforce the point. 

As you head down, there’s a pretty good skateboard bowl, along with a generic 7/10 playground, built by the same manufacturer (Blue Imp) that did a couple dozen 7/10 playgrounds for the city 10-20 years ago. 

There’s also another baseball and soccer field, and a community centre, so the park doesn’t lack amenities or views. Still, it doesn’t come together in a particularly integrated way; it’s a little too field heavy, with a lot of underused dead space on the top of the slope.  

On a snowy day though, with that view and that hill? 

There aren’t many better places to be.