Washington Square Park, a short history tour in Greenwich Village
Social Justice Tours guide Lucy Piccochi gives you a brief history tour of Washington Square Park and the blocks surrounding it in Greenwich Village, New York City.
Layered beneath the soil and pavement, bricks and concrete, are many profound and tragic stories of this long lived piece of land. The park has gone from marshy meadow, to cemetery, to a leisure ground for NYC's richest, to the center of American Bohemia and queer liberation, and now to NYU's backyard. Reflecting the city's growth and demographic changes, the neighborhoods to the north and south have gone on very opposite trajectories that often came into conflict with each other, a conflict which oftentimes manifested in the park itself, and which carries on in other forms today.
This video only touches upon the long and abundant history of this area. I explore these stories and others on my walking tours, but even then there's too much info to fit in a 2 &1/2 hour tour!
To learn more about Rose Butler, see a post I wrote for the SJT blog: https://www.socialjusticetours.com/bl...
If you're in NYC come on my Women's History of Greenwich Village or Protest Riots and Strikes tour, learn about this fascinating place and be inspired to keep on learning!
Music featured in this video is "Sidewalks of New York" by Charles B. Lawlor.