Washington Square Park (Tour)

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This statue commemorates nineteenth-century soldier and Italian patriot, Giuseppe Garibaldi (1807-1882). His military victories in the 1850s and 1860s facilitated the unification of the Italian peninsula and the creation of the Kingdom of Italy. Shortly after Garibaldi’s death in 1882, members of New York City’s Italian-American community formed a committee to raise funds for the erection of a statue to commemorate the late Italian patriot. The committee hired Italian-born sculptor Giovanni Turini to design the statue. For Turini, the commission was not just an opportunity to earn money, but also a chance to honor his former commander. Turini, in fact, had volunteered to serve under Garibaldi during Italy’s war with Austria in 1866. Dedicated in Washington Square Park in 1888, Turini’s work, an over-life-sized bronze statue of Garibaldi, depicts the Italian hero in military garb attempting to draw his sword. It rests on a tall, elaborate granite pedestal. In 1970, the statue was moved a short distance from its original location to accommodate the construction of a promenade in the park.

2. Base of the World War I Memorial Flagpole, Washington Square Park

The Washington Square Association erected the flagpole in 1920 to commemorate the neighborhood residents who lost their lives in World War I. It originally aligned with the Arch but in 1970 was moved to the east where it is located today. Unfortunately, the base of this flagpole lists only the men from the northern portion of the park's neighborhood who were predominantly WASPs. None of the predominantly Italian-American or African American residents who lived along the southern portion of the park and equally gave their lives are included.

3. Execution of Rose Butler (Former potter's field, now Washington Square Park)

Though visitors to the park may not be aware of it, New York's Washington Square Park was once a potter's field, where thousands of residents were interred in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Not only was the burial ground used for paupers and victims of epidemics, it was also the site of executions. The last known execution to take place at the site was in 1819. Rose Butler, a young enslaved woman, was executed for arson in an attempt to kill her owners. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court before Butler's execution for her crime.

4. Washington Mews

Even in a city as well-documented as New York, there are still places that manage to suprise. Just off Washington Square Park is Washington Mews, a cobblestoned, gated street that remains as one of the few vestiges of the Greenwich Village of old. Over the years, a number of famous New Yorkers have called the Mews home, including John Dos Passos, Edward Hopper, and Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney. Though it is a treasured part of the city, the short street is actually private property. Like much of the Village, it is owned by New York University.

5. Former Home and Studio of Edward Hopper

The building at 3 Washington Square now belongs to New York University, the building's fourth floor was the home, for many years, of artist Edward Hopper. He moved into the back room of the top floor in 1913 but eventually took the front room as well. Hopper chose the building because he believed Thomas Eakins, an artist he greatly admired, had painted there, and also because a skylight and windows overlooking Washington Square provided him with abundant natural light. The building is now one of several that houses NYU's School of Social Work, but the top floor apartment remains largely as it was when Hopper resided there. He lived there until his death in 1967.

6. Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, 1911

On Saturday, March 25, 1911, a fire broke out on the top floors of the Triangle Shirtwaist factory in the ten-story Asch Building just off of Washington Square. Managers often locked the exits to prevent workers from sneaking out for a break and to prevent theft. Trapped inside because the owners had locked the fire escape exit doors, workers jumped to their deaths. In a half an hour, the fire was over, and 146 of the 500 workers were dead. Most of the several hundred Triangle Shirtwaist employees were teenage girls, recent Jewish and Italian immigrants. The Asch Building is now known as the Brown Building and is part of the New York University campus.

7. Elmer Holmes Bobst Library

The Elmer Holmes Bobst Library (often known as The Bobst Library, or just "The Bobst") is the flagship institution of the 11-unit New York University (NYU) library system, and is named after the philanthropist, Elmer Holmes Bobst, whose gift made the library possible. Designed by distinguished architects Philip Johnson and Richard Foster and first opened in 1973, it is a twelve-story red sandstone building, located opposite the southeast corner of Washington Square Park in New York City's Greenwich Village. It is the primary research facility for NYU and currently serves 6000 people every day, who check out over a million books a year. It also houses many other print and non-print resources. As the library's website states, “Bobst Library's special collections and archives house significant resources, rare books, personal papers [and] University history.”

8. Former Location of Provincetown Playhouse

The Provincetown Players originated in 1915 in Provincetown, Massachusetts, but they are far more well-known for the Greenwich Village theater that bears their name. The theater opened in 1916 and is considered by many to be one of the most significant sites in the history of American drama. Eugene O’Neill, the only American playwright to win a Nobel Prize for literature, was closely associated with the theater, with several of his early plays being produced there. NYU acquired the property and demolished most of the building in 2008, although a theater with the Provincetown name remains at 133 MacDougal.

9. Minetta Tavern

The Minetta Tavern was established in 1937 by Eddie Silieri, who became known as Eddie Minetta, taking his name from the tavern that in turn borrowed its title from the stream that ran through the area. Founded at the height of the prohibition era, The Minetta Tavern became a popular speakeasy for many literary legends, most notably Joe Gould, who frequented the pub so often that he was said to receive his mail there. With perhaps a similar taste for pubs, authors Ernest Hemingway, Ezra Pound, Eugene O'Neill, E.E. Cummings, and Dylan Thomas visited the bar to unwind and socialize. Today, The Minetta Tavern retains much of its history, as much of the original design remains, serving to transport patrons back to a time when the world's greatest authors congregated here and wrote their masterpieces.

10. Caffé Reggio

In 1927, a barber named Dominic Parisi opened Caffé Reggio at 119 McDougal Street in Greenwich Village. At its conception, it was actually a spot where Parisi would offer free cups of coffee to his customers who were waiting their turn for a haircut. Soon, however, the delicious brewed drinks became so popular that Parisi decided to open it as an official café. This café was the first in America to serve the cappuccino when Parisi brought his espresso machine over from Italy.

11. Site of Eve Adams' Tearoom (1925-1926)

From just 1925 to 1926, a Polish immigrant, Chawe Zlocsewer, made history by operating what was perhaps the first lesbian bar in New York City. Known as Eve Adams' Tearoom (or Eve Adams' Hangout). The basement bar, popular as an after-theater club, made no secret of its clientele. Because it was openly a lesbian bar, Eve Adams' Tearoom was targeted by police and Adams (as Zlocsewer was known) was convicted on obscenity charges and eventually deported.

12. Anne Charlotte Lynch's House

The home of Anne Charlotte Lynch served as a gathering place for many up and coming authors residing in New York during the mid 1800s. Every Saturday evening, Lynch welcomed guests such as Edgar Allen Poe, Margaret Fuller, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Walt Whitman, Herman Melville, and more. At these meetings, it was said that authors would exchange ideas, reflect on their work, and at times, share certain excerpts with their fellow authors. In addition to being a sculptor and hostess, Lynch was also an author herself, though she is most famous for hosting these meetings. She is credited with founding the modern book club in New York.

13. Washington Square Hotel (formerly the Hotel Earle)

Manhattan is full of hotels with storied and colorful histories, but few can match the long and legendary history of the Washington Square Hotel which has operated at this location since the first years of the 20th century. Known for much of its history as the Hotel Earle, the property has played host to some of the twentieth century's most illustrious names in music and literature including the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, and Bo Didley. Located just steps from Washington Square Park in the heart of Greenwich Village, the hotel was a welcoming and affordable temporary home for the Village's bohemian denizens.

14. Former "Little Review" Office

On the upper floor of a nondescript building in Greenwich Village, literary history was made. From 1914 to 1929, the top floor apartment was home to Margaret Anderson and Jane Heap, who published the modernist literary journal, the Little Review. The journal published many of the most influential writers of the day, including Sherwood Anderson, Ernest Hemingway, and T.S. Eliot. But the Little Review is most remembered for its serialized publication of James Joyce's Ulysses, which was considered obscene at the time.

15. Former Residence of Suffragist Inez Milholland

Inez Milholland, who spent part of her youth in her family's home on East 9th Street, was a labor lawyer and suffragist. Bold and outspoken even at a young age, Milholland once shouted out of her window with a megaphone in defense of women suffrage, interrupting a parade for William Howard Taft. She is most well-known, perhaps, for leading a suffrage parade in Washington, DC, the day before Woodrow Wilson was inaugurated. What is sometimes lost amid stories of her flamboyant persona, however, is that Milholland was a determined advocate for women and laborers.

16. Former Residence of Thomas Wolfe

Writer Thomas Wolfe moved into the fourth-floor apartment at 13 East 8th Street in 1926, after accepting a teaching position at NYU. It was here that he would write the bulk of his first novel, Look Homeward, Angel. He lived in the apartment with his lover and benefactor, Aline Bernstein, who paid for the apartment. The couple lived in the apartment for several years, even as their relationship became increasingly strained. They eventually moved to a larger apartment on West 11th Street and separated soon after the novel's publication.

This Tour is a Virtual Museum or Site Tour.

Washington Square Park

Created by US History A (Stuyvesant High School) on November 22nd 2015, 6:57:18 pm.

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Washington Square Park used to be marshy ground inhabited by the Lenape tribe. After the arrival of settlers, the area was used primarily as farmland. After the Revolutionary War, the area was used as a potter's field, a place to bury those who died from yellow fever. After the potter's field was full, the area was declared a military parade ground. During the Draft Riots of 1863, troops were sent to this square in order to calm down the rioters. In 1870, the area was transformed into the park that we see today.

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Washington Square Park

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