Washington Square Park
Overview
THEN: The first person to have cleared the land beneath the trees, playgrounds, and statues of the present-day park was Big Manuel, one of the slaves brought to the Dutch colony of New Netherlands in 1625. After nineteen years, he was freed to farm near this then-swampy ground. At the end of the eighteenth century, the land was used as a potter's field; perhaps as many as twenty-two thousand bodies, many dead from yellow fever, lie beneath the present-day park.
NOW:
Since the buses were banned, their noise has become replaced by live musicians and the thud of feet as students race to classes at New York University.
Source: Six Heritage Tours of the Lower East Side by Ruth Limmer in collaboration with NYC's Lower East Side Tenement Museum
Location:
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Multimedia
The start of the Village
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