As of this summer, I’m no longer a Washington, D.C., local, but I’ll draft on the fumes of my Beltway years to recommend a perfect workspace: the Kogod Courtyard, in the National Portrait Gallery. Hardly a secret, it’s true, but the combination of light, air, and cathedral acoustics (not to mention being free to the public) is hard to beat. Kogod’s defining feature is its roof, a wavelike structure that seems to flutter like a curtain of glass over the tree boxes and a wafer-thin reflecting pool created by Kathryn Gustafson. (Norman Foster designed the atrium.) There’s an ambient hum of conversation that I haven’t found distracting; if anything, the reverberant quality of people’s voices makes the space feel pure and pensive. But, for true head-down days, the Luce Center on the third floor offers gratis coffee, electrical outlets galore, and pristine quiet.—Katy WaldmanNew York City