NEW YORK - For many of us, it’s simply a walk in the park, for the designer of Prospect Park and Central Park, Frederick Law Olmstead, these open spaces were a chance to improve public health.

“He referred to these spaces as the lungs of the city. He really thought about them in terms of peoples health and a place for people to be outside to commune with one-another and commune with nature and we’ve seen that to be true during this most recent pandemic,” said Sam Cochran, the Features Director at Architectural Digest.

Cochran says from our parks, to the hospital at Ellis Island - meant to holdback potential illnesses from other countries, to Bellevue Hospital built far from the city center to treat patients during the yellow fever epidemic, architects have been responding to public health for centuries.

“As far back as the bubonic plague that led to the clearance of squalid quarters in European cities, if you think about Collara, that led to innovations and plumbing, and even more recent innovations. When you think about even subway tiles, those were services that were chosen because their ability to be cleaned easily,” Cochran said.

The 1918 Spanish Flu epidemic and outbreaks of tuberculosis prompted modernist architects to create streamlined buildings with more light and fresh air, as seen in many city public housing developments like the Queensbridge Houses.

Often, architects were ahead of the science on the importance of natural light and fresh air, but these designs created other problems like overcrowding. Cochran sees current changes as having lasting, positive impact.

“We've seen more public space created with the adaptation of streets into pedestrian-only thoroughfares, the expansion of outdoor dining, the addition of new bike lanes, this is a very radical shift,” said Cochran.

Cochran believes the work-from-home trend will continue long pass the pandemic and says that could have a positive impact on our social fabric.

“Whereas work life in New York may have previously been centralized in Manhattan, I can imagine a future where there's a daisy-chain of commercial districts throughout every borough and that will hopefully breathe new energy into the cityscape,” Cochran said.

In fact, as people are home more and city neighborhoods are already being reinvigorated.