A Short History of Washington Square Park
Washington Square in Greenwich Village is one of New York’s most densely-used green spaces. Anchored by Stanford White’s iconic Washington Arch, it is a small park–barely 10 acres–with a long and colorful history.
For nearly two centuries the Square has been a place to linger, to play, to celebrate or demonstrate. It functions not only as a public park beloved by locals, but also as a campus green, a crossroads, a performance space and a magnet attracting visitors from around the world.
Early Years
Centuries before there was a park, Indians of the Lenape tribe knew the site as a marshy ground with abundant waterfowl and a fine trout stream called Minetta (long buried).
In 1624, the Dutch West India Company established a trading outpost at the southern tip of Manhattan. To secure enough food for the settlement’s growing population, the director of New Amsterdam freed a number of the African-born slaves in 1642 and granted them plots of land to farm in return for a portion of their crops. Some of the land grants overlapped the site of the future Square. The free black farmers later lost the right to own the land under English rule, and their property was incorporated into large estates owned by English and Dutch landholders.
A Potter’s Field
After the Revolutionary War, the city fathers of New York acquired some of this property for use as a potter’s field, a public burial place where poor and indigent people, mostly victims of yellow fever, were laid to rest. Epidemics continued to ravage New York’s population and after twenty years of use, the potter’s field was filled. Meanwhile city development was fast approaching the site. Pragmatic members of New York’s Common Council determined that the former cemetery would be a good location for a much-needed drilling ground for the city’s volunteer militia companies. On July 4, 1826 – the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence – the former potter’s field was officially declared the Washington Parade Ground. Leveled and landscaped, the new parade ground conferred a privileged status to the area and helped elevate the value of the surrounding real estate.
A Residential Enclave
Centuries before there was a park, Indians of the Lenape tribe knew the site as a marshy ground with abundant waterfowl and a fine trout stream called Minetta (long buried).
In 1624, the Dutch West India Company established a trading outpost at the southern tip of Manhattan. To secure enough food for the settlement’s growing population, the director of New Amsterdam freed a number of the African-born slaves in 1642 and granted them plots of land to farm in return for a portion of their crops. Some of the land grants overlapped the site of the future Square. The free black farmers later lost the right to own the land under English rule, and their property was incorporated into large estates owned by English and Dutch landholders.