Washington Square Park, New York
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| Washington Square Park | |
|---|---|
| The Washington Square Arch, at the park's center. | |
| Type | municipal |
| Coordinates | |
| Size | 9.75 acres (39,000 m²) |
| Opened | 1871 |
| Operated by | New York City Department of Parks and Recreation |
| Status | open all year |
Washington Square Park is one of the best-known of New York City's 1,700 public parks. At 9.75 acres (39,000 m²), it is a major landmark in the Manhattan neighborhood of Greenwich Village, as well as a popular meeting place and center for cultural activity.[1] It is operated by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation.
An open space with a tradition of nonconformity, the park's fountain area has long been one of the city's popular spots for residents and tourists. Most of the buildings surrounding the park now belong to New York University. Some of the buildings have been built by NYU, others have been converted from their former uses into academic and residential buildings. The university rents the park for its graduation ceremonies, and uses the Arch as a symbol. NYU wants the park to be the core of the school's campus. As early as 1922 its Chancellor predicted that the university would take over the park for its own uses, [1] but so far that has not happened. Local residents consider the park to be an essential part of the neighborhood, and have mounted vigorous campaigns to preserve it.
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[edit] Location and features
Located at the foot of Fifth Avenue, the park is bordered by Washington Square North (Waverly Place east and west of the park), Washington Square East (University Place north of the park), Washington Square South (West 4th Street east and west of the park), and Washington Square West (MacDougal Street north and south of the park).
While the Park contains many flower beds and trees, relatively little of the park is actually used for plantings due to the paving. The two prominent features are Washington's Arch and a large fountain. It includes children's play areas, trees and gardens, paths to stroll on, a chess playing area, park benches, picnic tables, commemorative statuary and two dog runs.
Those commemorated by statues and monuments include George Washington; Italian patriot and soldier Giuseppe Garibaldi, commander of the insurrectionist forces in Italy’s struggle for unification, and one to Alexander Lyman Holley, a talented engineer who helped kick-start the American steel industry after the invention of the Bessemer process for mass producing steel.
The New York City Police Department operates security cameras in the park. [2] The New York University Department of Public Safety also keeps a watch on the park, and the city parks department has security officers who sometimes patrol the park. The area is one of the lowest crime areas in the "safest big city in the United States."[3]
[edit] History
[edit] Colonial era agricultural use
Originally, the land here was divided by a narrow marshy valley through which Minetta Creek (or Brook) ran.[2] In the early 1600s, a Native American village known as Sapokanikan or "Tobacco Field." was nearby. By the mid 1600s, the land on each side of the Minetta was used as farm land by the Dutch.
[edit] Early 1800s use as a burial ground
It remained farmland until April 1797, when the Common Council of New York purchased the fields to the east of the Minetta (which were not yet within city limits) for a new potter's field, or public burial ground. It was used mainly for burying unknown or indigent people when they died.[2] But when New York (which did not include this area yet) went through terrible yellow fever epidemics in the early 1800s, most of those who died from yellow fever were also buried here, safely away from town, as a hygienic measure.[3]
A legend in many tourist guides says that the large elm at the northwest corner of the park, Hangman's Elm, was the old hanging tree.[3] Unfortunately for the legend, the tree was on the wrong side of the former Minetta Creek, where it stood in the back garden of a private house.[2] Records of only one public hanging at the potter's field exist. If more took place, the details are lost. Two eyewitness to the recorded hanging differed on the location of the gallows. One said it had been put up at a spot where the fountain is now, the other placed it closer to where the Arch is now.
The cemetery was closed in 1825. To this day, the remains of more than 20,000 bodies rest under Washington Square.[2]
[edit] Birth of Washington Square
In 1826 the City bought the land west of the Minetta, the square was laid out and leveled, and it was turned into the Washington Military Parade Ground. Military parade grounds were public spaces specified by the City where volunteer militia companies responsible for the nation's defense would train.
The streets surrounding the square became one of the city's most posh residential areas in the 1830s. The protected row of Greek Revival style houses on the north side of the park remain from that time.[4]
In 1849 and 1850, the old parade ground was reworked into the first true park on the site. More paths were added and a new fence was built around it. In 1871, it came under the control of the newly-formed New York City Department of Parks, and it was re-designed again, with curving rather than straight secondary paths.[2]
[edit] Construction of the arch
LET US RAISE A STANDARD TO WHICH THE WISE AND THE HONEST CAN REPAIR. THE EVENT IS IN THE HAND OF GOD. - WASHINGTON
White modeled the arch after the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. In 1918 two statues of George Washington were added to the north side.
Other defining characteristics of the park were added in this time. The first fountain was completed in 1852. The fountain was replaced in 1872. The monument to Giuseppe Garibaldi was unveiled in 1888.[2]
[edit] Robert Moses, Jane Jacobs, and Shirley Hayes
Robert Moses became the Parks Commissioner in 1934. He embarked on a crusade to fully redesign the park and local activists began an opposing fight that lasted three decades.
In 1934 Robert Moses had the fountain renovated to also serve as a wading pool. In 1952 Moses finalized plans to extend 5th Avenue through the park. He intended to eventually push it through the neighborhood south of the park, as part of an "urban renewal" project. Area residents, including Eleanor Roosevelt, opposed the plans. The urbanist Jane Jacobs became an activist and is credited with stopping the Moses plan and closing Washington Square Park to all auto traffic. But Jacobs, in her book The Death and Life of Great American Cities, praised another local advocate in the fight against park traffic, Shirley Hayes: "[Hayes and the Washington Square Park Committee] advocated eliminating the existing road, that is, closing the park to all automobile traffic — but at the same time, not widening the perimeter roads either. In short, they proposed closing off a roadbed without compensating for it."[cite this quote]
Hayes, former Chairman of the Washington Square Park Committee and member of the Greenwich Village Community Planning Board, a local resident and mother of four sons, started a public outcry for the park when large apartment buildings were raised on one of its borders. When then-Manhattan Borough president Hulan E. Jack suggested an elevated pedestrian walkway over a four-lane road through the park, Ms. Hayes initiated "Save the Square!", a seven-year battle to keep automobiles out of the quiet area. Though several different proposals were given for a roadway in the park, Hayes and her followers rejected them all. Seeking to "best serve the needs of children and adults of this family community," Hayes in turn presented her own proposal: 1.75 acres (700 m²) of roadway would be converted to parkland, a paved area would be created for emergency access only, and all other vehicles would be permanently banned from the park. This plan received widespread support, including that of then-Congressman John Lindsay as well as Washington Square Park West resident Eleanor Roosevelt. After a public hearing in 1958, a "ribbon tying" ceremony was held to mark the inception of a trial period in which the park would be free of vehicular traffic. In August 1959, the efforts of Ms. Hayes and her allies paid off: Washington Square Park was closed to traffic forever. A plaque commemorating her tireless crusade can be seen in the park today.
[edit] Folksingers, police attacks, and the so-called "Beatnik Riot"
On Sunday, April 9, 1961 folk music pioneer Izzy Young, owner of the Folklore Center (who had been trying to get permits for the folksingers) and about 500 musicians and supporters gathered in the park and sang songs without a permit, then held a procession from the park through the arch at Fifth Avenue, and marched to the Judson Memorial Church on the other side of the park. At about the time the musicians and friends reached the church, the New York Police Department "Riot Squad" was sent into the park, attacked civilians with billy clubs, and arrested ten people. The incident made the front pages of newspapers as far away as Washington D. C. The New York Mirror initially reported it as a "Beatnik Riot" but retracted the headline in the next edition. These tensions did not die down for some time.
[edit] Future redesign
As of 2007, Greenwich Village is embroiled in a controversy over the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation's proposed redesign plan, which would cost roughly 16 million dollars. Controversial aspects of the proposed plan include enlarging the existing peripheral fence, reducing the size of the park’s central plaza, transforming the fountain from a theater-in-the-round performance space to an ornamental fountain with a constant 45 feet plume, and cutting dozens of mature trees. The alleged disenfranchisement of local community members in the planning and design process is of greatest concern to many.
So far, five lawsuits have been filed challenging various aspects of the Parks Department's renovation plans. A 2005 suit was withdrawn by the petitioners as premature. In July 2006, New York County Supreme Court Justice Emily Jane Goodman enjoined any renovation work on the fountain or fountain plaza area, pending further review of the plans by the local community board, the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, and the Art Commission, stating that the Parks Department misrepresented the project in order to secure its approval; but this decision was reversed on appeal.[4] Another lawsuit challenging the Art Commission's approval of the plan was dismissed. Two more lawsuits questioning the environmental review of the renovation project were heard in 2007 by the New York County Supreme Court, then dismissed.
On December 10, the community group opposing the plan, Open Washington Square Park Coalition, released a statement calling for investigation of Parks Department on their website. The group also released a private report showing that the removal of the fountain will cost about a half million.
Around 2:30 p.m. on December 19, 2007, New York City Department of Parks and Recreation completely fenced off the fountain plaza area, leaving the area closed for construction with a projected completion date of Spring 2009. On that night, Open Washington Square Park Coalition, the community group opposing the construction, had a candlelight vigil by the arch, attended by about 25 people.
[edit] The park in popular culture and local politics
Washington Square has long been a hub for politics and culture in New York City.
In 1834 New York University decided to use prison labor to dress the stone for its new building, across from the park. Prison labor from Sing Sing was cheaper than hiring local stone masons. This, the stonecutters of the city said, was taking the bread out of their mouths. They held a not-very-peaceful rally in Washington Square Park, and then held the first labor march in the city. That turned into a riot, and the Twenty-seventh Regiment was called out to quell the stonecutters. The regiment camped in Washington Square for four days and nights until the excitement subsided. New York University continued with their use of prison labor. [6]
In 1888, Robert Louis Stevenson, in the U.S. seeking medical help for his battle with consumption, shared a seat in the Park with Mark Twain, enjoying conversation.
In 1912, approximately 20,000 workers (twenty-five percent of them women), marched to the park to commemorate the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, which had killed 146 workers the year prior. Many of the women wore fitted tucked-front blouses like those manufactured by the Triangle Shirtwaist Company, a clothing style that became the working woman's uniform and a symbol of female independence, reflecting the alliance of labor and suffrage movements. Over 25,000 people marched on the park demanding women's suffrage in 1915.
In the years before and after World War I the park was a center for many American artists, writers, and activists, including the photographer André Kertész, who photographed the square during winter. Later the park was a gathering area for the Beat generation, folk, and Hippie movements in the 1950s and 1960s.
Washington Square has served as the setting in a number of literary and musical works, including William S. Burroughs' Naked Lunch, Henry James' Washington Square and Joan Baez' 1975 song "Diamonds & Rust".
It also appears in the 1995 movie "Kids". The television show The Critic also featured the Washing Square Arch in its opening credits. A minor character from the film Deep Impact is seen within the park when a giant tsunami comes ashore, destroying the arch while sweeping away fleeing citizens. Recently, the main character of the 2007 film "I Am Legend," played by Will Smith, has his home and laboratory on the Square.
On September 27, 2007, Democratic Presidential Candidate Barack Obama held a rally at Washington Square. 20,000 people registered for the event, and the crowds overflowed past security gates set up as a cordon. The New York Times described the rally "as one of the largest campaign events of the year".[5]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Washington Square Park, New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. Accessed October 1, 2007.
- ^ a b c d e f g Geismar, Joan H. Washington Square Park: Phase 1A Archaeological Assessment, New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, August 2005. Accessed October 1, 2007.
- ^ a b Washington Square Park Council History Page
- ^ http://www.nycourts.gov/reporter/3dseries/2007/2007_01943.htm
- ^ Zeleny, Jeff. "Obama Distances Himself From Clinton, on Her Turf", The New York Times, September 28, 2007. Accessed December 18, 2007. "Mr. Obama’s aides said more than 20,000 people registered for the event through the campaign’s Web site. While it was impossible to determine even a reliable attendance estimate, view from the vantage point of an elevated lift seemed to reveal the gathering as one of the largest campaign events of the year."
[edit] External links
- Information about Washington Square Park at the New York City Deparment of Parks and Recreation website
- "Balladeers & Billy Clubs" from Rogue, August 1961
- Washington Square Arch: A Triumph (2001)
- Preserve Washington Square Park (website celebrating the park and opposing the redesign)
- Open Washington Square Park (community coalition opposing the redesign)
- Washington Square Park Phase 1A Archeological Assessment
- Video of Washington Square Park
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