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Union Square was not named for labor or for the North, but for
the fact that Broadway meets and briefly converges with the Bowery
(now 4th Avenue and Park), once Broadway's rival as NYC's main street. In the
city plan of 1811, Broadway was supposed to be eliminated north of
14th Street, permanently uniting it with 4th Avenue. Fortunately,
NYC was unable to raise money to reroute Broadway, saving Manhattan
above Downtown from complete predictability.
The square has a rich political history: 250,000 gathered here to
support the Union during the Civil War (1861), the largest crowd ever assembled
in North America up to that point. Here were the first U.S. labor day
parade (1882), Emma Goldman's arrest for telling unemployed to steal
bread (1893), a funeral march for Triangle Shirtwaist Fire victims
(1911), protests against Sacco & Vanzetti's execution (1927) and
the Rosenbergs' (1953). After the destruction of the World Trade
Center, Union Square became the site of an impromptu memorial and
peace vigil.
The parking lot at the north end of the park hosts Union Square
Greenmarket; Manhattan's biggest farmers' market.
It used to be used for weekly recreations of medieval combat by the
Society for Creative Anachronism.
James Fountain
This 1881 work by Karl Adolph Donndorf, surmounted
by a statue of Charity, was intended to promote
temperance. ''Here's something else you can
drink--water!'' was a popular anti-alcohol message.
Gandhi statue
Placed here in 1986 to commemorate Union
Square's history of (mostly) non-violent protest.
Emma Goldman would have been a better choice.
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In the summer months, there's an outdoor cafe in Union Square
called Luna Park, named for the legendary
amusement park at Coney Island.
Sponsored by the Union League Club and sculpted by
Henry Kirke Brown in 1869. It used to be where the Gandhi
statue is now, and it used to be surrounded by
a fence inscribed “with malice toward none; charity toward all"
from his Second Inaugural Address. Lincoln's body
lay in state in Union Square on April 24, 1865,
before being taken to City Hall.
The flagpole in the center of the square, with a base
by Anthony de Francisi and a quote from Jefferson
about how we don't know how good we have it.
Francisi's bas reliefs depict the subversion
of democracy by empire; they're really quite radical.
(Officially the flagpole is dedicated to Tammany Hall
leader Charles F. Murphy, but public sentiment
dissuaded the city from elevating the machine boss
to the level of Lincoln and Washington.)
Equestrian statue by Henry Kirke Brown and John Quincy
Ward (1856) was formerly on the traffic island next to 4th
Avenue, where it supposedly marked the actual spot
where Washington greeted the citizens of New York
when he liberated the city from British rule after the
Revolutionary War, on November 25, 1783. The
present spot actually seems more likely
to be where the roads met 220 years ago.
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Statue of Lafayette
By Bartholdi, sculptor of the Statue of Liberty; he made
this statue to remind New York of Franco-American
friendship as part of his campaign to raise money for
Liberty's pedestal. Should be facing toward Washington,
to whom
Lafayette is offering his sword;
as it is, he's more or less facing a tree.
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The steps at the south end of Union Square have become one
of Manhattan's great public spaces--used by
skateboarders, break dancers, political agitators and
people just hanging out on the steps. The
Critical Mass
bicycle rallies gather here on the last Friday of every month,
though they've largely been suppressed by extra-Constitutional
NYPD action. There's a craft fair here every year in December.
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