Lights and Shadows of New York Life / or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City

by James Dabney McCabe

IV. OTHER PARKS.

Washington Square is located between Fourth and Seventh streets, at the lower end of Fifth avenue. The site was originally a Potter’s Field, and it is said that over one hundred thousand persons were buried here in days gone by. The square contains a little over nine acres, and is handsomely laid out, and adorned with a fountain, around which passes the main carriage drive, flowers, shrubbery, etc. The trees are among the finest in the city, and are kept with great care. An iron railing formerly surrounded the grounds, but in 1870-71 this was removed, and Fifth avenue was extended through the square to Laurens street. This street was widened and called South Fifth avenue, thus practically extending the avenue to West Broadway at Canal street. The square is surrounded by handsome residences. On the east side are the University of New York and a Lutheran Church.

Tompkins Square is one of the largest in the city, and is laid off without ornament, being designed for a drill ground for the police and military. It occupies the area formed by avenues A and B, and Seventh and Tenth streets.

Union Square, lying between Broadway and Fourth avenue, and Fourteenth and Seventeenth streets, was originally a portion of the estate of Elias Brevoort. In 1762 he sold twenty acres lying west of the “Bowery Road” to John Smith, whose executors sold it to Henry Spingler for the sum of £950, or about $4750. The original farm-house is believed to have stood within the limits of the present Union Square. About the year 1807 Broadway was laid off to the vicinity of Twenty-second street, and in 1815 Union Square was made a “public place,” and in 1832 it was laid off as it now exists. The square is regular in shape, and the central portion is laid off as a park, and ornamented with shrubbery, flowers, walks, and a fountain. It is one of the prettiest parks in the city, and covers an area of several acres. It is oval in form, and is without an enclosure.

Near the fountain is a thriving colony of English sparrows, imported and cared for by the city for the purpose of protecting the trees from the ravages of worms, etc. The birds have a regular village of quaint little houses built for them in the trees. They frequent all the parks of the city, but seem to regard this one as their headquarters. Some of the houses are quite extensive and are labelled with curious little signs, such as the following: “Sparrows’ Chinese Pagoda,” “Sparrows’ Doctor Shop,” “Sparrows’ Restaurant,” “Sparrows’ Station House,” etc. At the southeast angle of the square stands Hablot K. Browne’s equestrian statue of Washington, a fine work in bronze, and at the southwest angle is his statue of Lincoln, of the same metal. The houses surrounding the square are large and handsome. They were once the most elegant residences in New York, but are now, with a few exceptions, used for business. Several hotels, the principal of which are the Everett and Spingler Houses, front on the Square. On the south side, east of Broadway, is the Union Square Theatre, and

on the west side, at the corner of Fifteenth street, Tiffany’s magnificent iron building. In a few years the square will doubtless be entirely surrounded with similar structures. It is here that the monster mass meetings are held.

Stuyvesant Square lies to the east of Union Square, and is bisected by the line of the Second avenue. Its upper and lower boundaries are Fifteenth and Seventeenth streets. It consists of two beautiful parks of equal size, surrounded by a handsome iron railing, and filled with choice flowers and shrubbery. In the centre of each is a fountain. These parks are the property of St. George’s Church (Episcopal), which stands on the west side of the square at the corner, and were given to the corporation of that church by the late Peter G. Stuyvesant, Esq.

Grammercy Park lies midway between the Fourth and Third avenues, and separates Lexington avenue on the north from Irving Place, really a part of the same avenue, on the south. Its northern and southern boundaries are Twentieth and Twenty-first streets. It is tastefully laid out, is enclosed with an iron fence, and is kept locked against the public, as it is the private property of the persons living around it. On the east side the entire block is taken up by the Grammercy Park Hotel—a first-class boarding house—the other three sides are occupied by the residences of some of the wealthiest capitalists in America. Here dwell Peter Cooper, Moses Taylor, Cyrus W. Field, James Harper (of Harper & Bros.), and others equally well known in the financial world.