Square, Plaza sights in New York City
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Astor Place
This square and street is named after the Astor family, who built an early New York fortune on beaver pelts (check out the tiles in the wall of the Astor Place subway platform) and lived on Colonnade Row, just south of the square; four of the original nine marble-faced, Greek Revival residences on Lafayette St still exist. The large, brownstone Cooper Union, the public college founded in 1859 by glue millionaire Peter Cooper, dominates the square – now more than ever – as the school has just constructed its first new academic building in 50 years, a striking, twisting, nine-story sculpture of glazed glass wrapped in perforated stainless steel (and LEED-certified, too) by …
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Washington Square Park
A park that began as a potter’s field (and, conveniently, a public-execution ground), this is the town square of the Village, host to book-toting NYU students, fire-eating street performers, dog-run canines and their owners and speed-chess champs alike. Mint-condition townhouses and large modern structures, all belonging to NYU, surround the space on all sides. But its biggest claim to fame is that it’s home to the iconic Stanford White Arch, colloquially known as the Washington Square Arch, which dominates the park with its 72ft of beaming white Dover marble. Originally designed in wood to celebrate the centennial of George Washington’s inauguration in 1889, the arch pro…
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C
Chatham Square
At Chatham Sq you’ll see the Kim Lau Memorial Arch, erected in 1962 as a memorial to Chinese Americans who died in WWII. There’s also a statue of Lin Ze Xu, a Qing-dynasty scholar whose anti-drug trafficking stance helped lead to the First Opium War in 1839.
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Abingdon Square
This historic dot on the landscape (just a quarter-acre small) is a lovely little patch of green, home to grassy knolls, beds of perennial flowers and winding bluestone paths, as well as a popular Saturday greenmarket. It’s a great place to enjoy a midday picnic or rest after an afternoon of wandering the winding West Village streets. After getting horizontal, look up at the southern end of the park and you’ll see the Abingdon Doughboy, a bronze statue dedicated to servicemen from the neighborhood who gave their lives in WWI (when soldiers were commonly known as ‘doughboys’).
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Sheridan Square
The shape of a triangle, Sheridan Sq isn't much more than a few park benches and some trees surrounded by an old-fashioned wrought-iron gate. But its location (the heart of gay Greenwich Village) has meant that it's witnessed every rally, demonstration and uprising that has contributed to New York's gay rights movement. It also holds two sets of slender white statues: a male couple and a female couple, holding hands and talking. Known as Gay Liberation, they are a tribute to the normalcy of gay life.
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Herald Square
This crowded convergence of Broadway, Sixth Ave and 34th St is best known as the home of famous Macy’s department store, where you can still ride some of the remaining original wooden elevators to floors ranging from women’s casualwear and home furnishings to lingerie and linens. And, as part of the city’s recent ‘traffic-free Times Square’ plan, you can also (try to) relax in a lawn chair right outside of Macy’s, in the middle of Broadway and right alongside of Herald Sq. The busy square gets its name from a long-defunct newspaper, the New York Herald (1835–1924), and the small, leafy park here bustles during business hours thanks to a recent and much-needed facelift. Do…
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Court House Square
Across the street from the Citicorp Building is Court House Square, home to a 1904 Beaux Arts courthouse.
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