NY -- NYC -- Washington Square Park:
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- Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
- WASHSQ_031007_18.JPG: This is the Washington Square Arch which was under a 16-month restoration project. There were signs describing the history of the arch:
History:
The Washington Square Arch is a defining feature of the Greenwich Village Landmark Historic District, the emblem of New York University, and the heart of an international tourist mecca. Designed by Stanford White and dedicated in 1895, the triumphal arch was an expression of the City Beautiful movement, which sought to create structures and public spaces in America whose beauty and stature would rival those of the European capitals.
This arch was preceded in 1889 by a temporary triumphal arch of wood and paper mache spanning Fifth Avenue, 100 feet north of the square. Designed also by Stanford White, it commemorated the centennial of George Washington's inauguration in New York City.
The temporary arch was so well received that plans were immediately made to erect a permanent structure built of Tuchahoe marble. Nearly $122,000 was raised through private subscription.
David H King Jr, who constructed the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty, was hired as builder. Most of the ornamentation on the Arch, including the spandral panels, was designed by William MacMonnies, and crafted by the Piccirilli studio, a shop of Italian master carvers. The two marble eagles were designed by Philip Martiny. Construction began on May 30 1890, was completed by February 1895, and the Arch was dedicated on May 4th that year.
A later campaign funded the statues of Washington. The eastern statue depicts George Washington as Commander-in-Chief, accompanied by Fame and Valor. It was designed by Herman Atkins MacNeil and installed in 1916. To the west, Washington as Stateman, accompanied by Wisdom and Justice, designed by Alexander Stirling Calder, was installed in 1918. Both were carved of Dover marble by the Piccirilli studio.
The Washington Square Arch has attained iconic status, appearing frequently in the work of artists and photographers, including Edward Hopper, Ernest Lawson, William Glackens, and Berenice Abbott. In 1917, as Greenwich Village was becoming a center of bohemian and intellectual life, a group of artists and actors led by Marcel Duchamp, John Sloan, and Gertrude Drick, illicitly camped atop the Arch and declared Greenwich Village an independent nation.
Conservation:
The ravages of time have had their effect on the Washington Square Arch. Not long after the monument was completed, Stanford White observed cracking in the marble, but decided that it was not a significant threat to the structure. For over 60 years, cars and buses ran through the Arch; beginning in 1958, traffic was phased out after protests led by Shirley Hayes and other Greenwich Village activists.
Weathering, pollution, water seepage, roosting birds, vandalism, and inappropriate treatments (including sandblaster and over-painting) contributed to widespread deterioration of the masonry surface, and to the erosion or loss of sculptural elements. In 1997, the Arch underwent an interim stabilization. Systematic examination of the Arch between 1992 and 1998 revealed crumbling stonework, surface "sugaring," brittle ornament, vegetative growth, and general soiling and decay. These assessments included extensive on-site and laboratory testing of cleaning methods and stone consolidants.
This project will restore the Washington Square Arch to its rightful grandeur. Conservation treatments for the Arch were established based on the recommendations of a panel of experts from here and abroad that was assembled by Parks for consultation. Loose pieces of marble will be secured, detached pieces salvaged by Parks will be reattached, select sculptural and decorative features will be recarved, and fissures filled with an appropriate mortar compound. The statues of Washington will be repaired, using 3-D laser images as models.
The marble masonry is being carefully cleaned using a low-velocity micro-abrasive system, and the Arch is being treated with a chemical consolidant that strengthens the stone and protects against weathering. A new roof will be built. Select joints on the exterior walls will be repointed, and cracks in interior walls repaired. The rusting steel elements of the Guastavino terra cotte tile staircase within the east pier will be replaced.
Efflorescence (surface crystallization of salts) will be removed from the interior brick masonry. Nylon mesh bird proofing will be installed, and the Arch will be fully illuminated.
- Wikipedia Description: Washington Square Park
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Washington Square Park is a 9.75-acre (39,500 m2) public park in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Lower Manhattan, New York City. One of the best known of New York City's 1,900 public parks, it is a landmark as well as a meeting place and center for cultural activity. It is operated by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation.
The Park is an open space, dominated by the Washington Square Arch at the northern gateway to the park, with a tradition of celebrating 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, but many have at one time served as homes and studios for artists. Some of the buildings have been built by NYU while others have been converted from their former uses into academic and residential buildings.
Location and features
An aerial view of Washington Square Park and the start of Fifth Avenue, as seen from New York University's Kimmel Center on Washington Square South.
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, little of the park is used for plantings due to the paving. The two prominent features are the Washington Square Arch and a large fountain. It includes children's play areas, trees and gardens, paths to stroll on, a chess and scrabble 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 Alexander Lyman Holley, a talented engineer who helped 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. 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 has a low crime rate in the "safest big city in the United States."
History
Early usage
The land was once divided by a narrow marshy valley through which Minetta Creek (or Brook) ran. In the early 17th century, a Native American village known as Sapokanican or "Tobacco Field" was nearby. By the mid-17th century, the land on each side of the Minetta was used as farm land by the Dutch. The Dutch gave the land to slaves, thus freeing them, with the intention of using them as a buffer zone to hostile Native Americans outside the settlement. The slaves that received the land were told that, although they were no longer slaves, they had to give a portion of the profits they received from the land to the Dutch West India Company. Also, their children would be born as slave, rather than free. The tract was in the possession of African Americans from 1643 to 1664. Today, the area, then called "The Land of the Blacks," is Washington Square Park. The ex-slaves who owned "The Land of the Blacks" included Paulo D'Angola. More information can be found at the exhibit "Slavery in New York" at the New-York Historical Society of Manhattan.
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. But when New York (which did not include this area yet) went through yellow fever epidemics in the early 19th century, most of those who died from yellow fever were also buried here, safely away from town, as a hygienic measure.
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. However, research indicates the tree was on the side of the former Minetta Creek that was the back garden of a private house. Records of only one public hanging at the potter's field exist. Two eyewitnesses to the recorded hanging differed on the location of the gallows. One said it had been put up at a spot where the fountain was prior to 2007 park redesign. Others placed the gallows closer to where the Arch is now. However, the cemetery was closed in 1825. To this day, the remains of more than 20,000 bodies rest under Washington Square. Excavations have found tombstones under the park dating as far back as 1799.
Creation of Washington Square
In 1826 the City bought the land west of Minetta Creek, 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 desirable residential areas in the 1830s. The protected row of Greek Revival style houses on the north side of the park remain from that time.
In 1849 and 1850, the parade ground was reworked into the first 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.
Construction of the arch
Washington Square Arch
In 1889, to celebrate the centennial of George Washington's inauguration as president of the United States, a large plaster and wood Memorial Arch was erected over Fifth Avenue just north of the park. The temporary plaster and wood arch was so popular that in 1892 a permanent Tuckahoe marble arch, designed by the New York architect Stanford White, was erected, standing 77 feet (23 m) and modeled after the Arc de Triomphe, built in Paris in 1806. During the excavations for the eastern leg of the arch, human remains, a coffin, and a gravestone dated to 1803 were uncovered 10 feet (3.0 m) below ground level.
The first fountain next to the arch was completed in 1852 and replaced in 1872. The monument to Giuseppe Garibaldi was unveiled in 1888. In 1918, two statues of George Washington were added to the north side.
Early 20th century renovation
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."
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: from that time forward Washington Square Park has been completely closed to traffic. A plaque commemorating her tireless crusade can be seen in the park today.
Mid-20th century
Since around the end of World War II, folksingers had been congregating on warm Sunday afternoons at the fountain in the center of the park. Tension and conflicts began to develop between the bohemian element and the remaining working class residents of the neighborhood. The city government began showing an increasing hostility to the use of public facilities by the public, and in 1947 began requiring permits before public performances could be given in any city park.
In the spring of 1961, the new Parks Commissioner refused a permit to the folksingers for their Sunday afternoon gatherings, because "the folksingers have been bringing too many undesirable [beatnik] elements into the park." On 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 City 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, although tensions remained for a while.
Early 21st century renovation
In December 2007, the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation began construction on a US$16 million project to redesign and refurbish Washington Square Park. Changes to the park's design include the realignment of the central fountain with the arch, a replacement of the existing perimeter fence with a taller iron fence, and the flattening and shrinking of the central plaza. The plan also called for the downing of dozens of mature trees and the reinstitution of ornamental water plumes in the fountain—which, opponents worried, would undermine the park's informal character.
Five lawsuits were filed to challenge 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. 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.
Upon the completion of phase one of the park's renovation on May 22, 2009, the Coalition for a Better Washington Square Park, a private organization, began raising money to "hire off-duty cops and maintenance workers to patrol the Park" by the summer of 2010.
On June 2, 2011, the eastern half of the park was reopened to the public, leaving only the park's southwest corner under construction. In mid-August 2012, the new granite benches heated up to 125 degrees in the sun, rendering them temporarily unusable.
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