Washington Square Park #1
by Ed Weidman
Title
Washington Square Park #1
Artist
Ed Weidman
Medium
Photograph - Digital Photographs
Description
a beautiful summer day in nyc's Washington square park finds children splashing the heat away in its beautiful fountain.
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.
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 one to 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."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 Centerwho had been trying to get permits for the folksingersand 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.
Uploaded
June 30th, 2016
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Viewed 80 Times - Last Visitor from New York, NY on 03/21/2024 at 1:07 AM
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