Named for its location at the intersection (or union) of Bloomingdale Road (now Broadway) and Bowery Road (now Fourth Avenue), Union Square Park (also referred to simply as Union Square) opened to the public in 1839. Throughout its history, the park has been the site of innumerable workers’ protests and rallies, even serving as the terminus of the first Labor Day parade on September 5, 1882. Due to its significance to American labor history, the United States Department of the Interior designated the park a National Historic Landmark in 1997. Today, the park boasts several monuments, in addition to a tremendously popular open-air market. It remains a popular site for protests and demonstrations.
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This statue commemorates lawyer, social activist, and leader of the Indian independence movement, Mohandas Gandhi (1869-1948). A practitioner of nonviolent civil disobedience, he protested the injustices suffered by Indians under the British Raj during the early twentieth century. During this time, Gandhi also worked assiduously to promote peace and understanding between Hindus and Muslims in India. In 1948, while on his way to a prayer meeting in New Delhi, he was assassinated by a Hindu extremist. On October 2, 1986, a statue of Gandhi was dedicated in Union Square Park. Donated by the Gandhi Memorial International Foundation with support from Indian-born fashion tycoon Mohan Murjani, the over-life-sized bronze statue depicts Gandhi walking with a staff, peering into the distance. Designed by sculptor Kantilal B. Patel, it was installed in Union Square Park because of the park’s long history as a site of demonstrations and protests. Today, the statue remains in its original location near the southwest corner of Union Square Park.
This statue commemorates one of the nation’s Founding Fathers, George Washington (1732-1799). During the American Revolution, he served as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army. His stunning victory at Trenton in December 1776 helped to turn the tide of the war and his victory at Yorktown in October 1781 effectively secured American independence. In 1789, Washington was unanimously elected the first President of the United States. After serving two, four-year terms from 1789 to 1797, he retired to Mount Vernon, where he died in 1799. A little more than half a century after Washington’s death, in 1851, a committee of New Yorkers with the intent of erecting a statue in honor of the nation’s first president approached two sculptors, Horatio Greenough and Henry Kirke Brown, and asked them to submit designs. When Greenough died unexpectedly in December 1852, the commission went to Brown. Installed in Manhattan’s Union Square Park, the over-life-sized bronze equestrian statue, which rests on a granite pedestal designed by architect Richard Upjohn, depicts Washington riding into New York City on Evacuation Day (November 25, 1783), the day the British left the city for good. In the late 1920s, due to subway construction, the park was entirely demolished, but was reconfigured and reopened soon after. Consequently, the statue of Washington was moved from its original location on a traffic island in the middle of a street near the park’s southeast corner to the center of its south end, where it remains today. Dedicated in 1856, it is the oldest sculpture in the collection of the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation.
Samuel Klein founded the discount department store S. Klein, with his flagship store at this location (presently Zeckendorf Towers) around 1910. Although his business grew to include 19 stores in New York and New Jersey, changes in discount retail shopping led to the decline of the once-popular chain and this store closed in 1975. During the 1940s and 1950s, the store was famous for its bargain bins and the enthusiasm for which shoppers would "dig" through them, competing with others for the best deal. The experience of shopping at S. Klein has been depicted in such iconic television shows as I Love Lucy.
This statue made of bronze honors Marquis de Lafayette, a French aristocrat who fought on behalf of American rebels during the American Revolutionary War. The statue was cast in 1873 and designed by French sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi and dedicated in 1876. The statue was a gift from the French government in appreciation for help provided by the state of New York to Paris during the Franco-Prussian War. The statue is inscribed with the words, “in remembrance of sympathy in times of trial.”
The Tammany Society Hall was opened in 1929 as centre of operations for the notorious political organisation of the same name. From the 1850s to the late 1920s the Tammany Society decided who would govern New York City through an impenetrable network of corruption and bribery. The society’s prominence in New York’s affairs was relatively uninterrupted until the 1930s, when reform mayor Fiorello la Guardia together with Franklin Roosevelt cracked down on reducing the influence of its members. Although crippled, the organisation remained in existence until it was finally ended by Mayor John Lindsay in the 1960s. In 2013 the Tammany Hall building became a landmark site.
Constructed in 1892 for the Decker Brothers piano company architect and radical anarchist John H. Edelmann, this building has been home to numerous companies. It's most famous tenant, however, was Andy Warhol, who leased studio space on the sixth floor from 1968 through 1973. The studio was known as the Silver Factory and was known for cutting-age art and decadent parties. The studio is also famous for being the place where radical feminist Valerie Solanas shot Andy Warhol and art critic and curator Mario Amaya in 1968.
Designed by distinguished sculptor Henry Kirke Brown, this Union Square Park statue commemorates the sixteenth President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865). As president from 1861 to 1865, he shepherded the nation through the Civil War, while also issuing the Emancipation Proclamation and helping to pass the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution through Congress. On the evening of April 14, 1865, less than a week after Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, Lincoln was shot by southern sympathizer John Wilkes Booth while attending a play at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C. He died early the next morning. Following Lincoln’s assassination, the Union League Club, an organization of pro-Union New Yorkers formed in 1863, began raising funds for the construction of a monument to commemorate the slain president. The over-life-sized bronze statue of Lincoln, which rests on a nearly fifteen-foot-tall granite pedestal, was dedicated on September 16, 1870. In the late 1920s, due to subway construction, the park was entirely demolished, but was reconfigured and reopened soon after. Consequently, the statue of Lincoln was moved from its original location at the park’s southwest corner to its north end, where it remains today.
Although dedicated in 1930, the Independence Flagstaff (known also as the Liberty Flagpole or the Charles F. Murphy Memorial Flagpole) commemorates the sesquicentennial of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Donated by Tammany Hall, it was originally intended as a memorial to the New York Democratic political machine’s longtime boss, Charles Francis Murphy (1858-1924). Public opposition to a memorial to Murphy in Union Square Park, however, led Tammany to abandon its original plan, opting instead to reconceive the project as a commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Tammany commissioned Italian-born sculptor Anthony de Francisci to design the flagpole and decorative features, and architect Perry Coke Smith to design the pedestal and small surrounding plaza. Composed of a steel core with a copper sheathing, the flagpole rests on a massive granite pedestal. Two bronze bas-reliefs and two bronze plaques featuring the text of the Declaration of Independence, emblems from the thirteen original colonies, and allegorical figures representing democracy and tyranny adorn the pedestal. Capping the flagpole was a liberty cap finial, a symbol of Tammany Hall. By the 1980s, Union Square Park had fallen into disrepair. The flagpole had been toppled and the bas-reliefs and plaques on the granite pedestal had become covered in moss. During the decade, however, the park underwent major renovations and the flagpole was restored with one minor change: the original liberty cap finial was replaced with a gilded sunburst.
This Tour is a Walking Tour.
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This short walk around New York's Union Square includes stops at several monuments and landmarks and is designed to help both residents and visitors to the city. The tour includes stops at statues dedicated to Ghandi, George Washington, Lincoln, and Lafayette and also includes the former site of Tammany Hall.
