The Park Book - Part Two

Perhaps the best known feature of Washington Square is its marble arch, modeled after the Arc de Triomphe in Paris and erected in 1892 to honor our first president. However, if you were to ask the children of Greenwich Village which feature of the park they liked the best, most would probably say the fountain. The year 1852 marked the first fountain in the park, preceding the original wooden arch by 37 years. Today the fountain sits directly in front of the arch, in the middle of a plaza that is encircled by shade trees and benches. The scene looks very much much like it appears in The Park Book.

The Park Book by Charlotte Zolotow, illus. by Hans Rey
New York: Harper & Brothers, 1944

Ironically, that was not how the park was configured in 1944, when Hans Rey sat making his sketches. Unlike today, Fifth Avenue dissected the park, curving around the fountain on its eastern side. An aerial photograph taken in 1947, four years after The Park Book was published, illustrates the way the park was configured. Traffic through the park stopped in 1964 when Fifth Avenue was closed at Waverley Place (Washington Square North). Later, in 1995, the New York Landmarks Preservation Commission and the Washington Square Association voted to “shift the fountain into precise alignment with the arch as seen from Fifth Avenue.”

A 1995 New York Times article said the park’s redesign was needed to “level off the park’s quirky changes in elevation, replace a large plaza with lawn, and fix the fountain’s leaks.” That’s one explanation. I happen to think the members of the Landmark Preservation Commission and the Washington Square Association had read The Park Book as children and grew up picturing the park as Hans did in his imagination. Instead of drawing the park as it was in the 19^th century, perhaps Hans Rey was creating a plan for what it could become in the 21^st. What do you think? Visit the Washington Square Park blog to see aerial photographs of the park reconfigured according to Rey's design.

Washington Square Park



© Ann Mulloy Ashmore 2012

      “The Village is New York to me,” Hans once told a reporter for The Villager newspaper in 1962.  If Greenwich Village was their neighborhood, Washington Square Park was their front yard. It was where they walked their black cocker spaniel, Charcoal, where Hans sat and read his morning papers, where the couple greeted friends walking to and from shops and restaurants. In less than a year after their arrival in the United States, the couple had settled into an apartment located at 42 Washington Square South. Their front window faced the park with a view of the stately Greek Revival homes along its northern boundary and the Washington Arch, erected in 1889 from a design by noted architect,

© Ann Mulloy Ashmore 2012

Stanford White. Land for the park had been acquired by the city in 1795. Originally used as a Potter's Field, or burial ground for the poor, it was converted into a parade ground in 1826. Subsequently, New Yorkers began to build townhouses along its perimeter. The first fountain appeared in 1852, and over the years various statues and monuments have been added. Today the park serves as a "quad" for New York University (NYU) whose buildings, (noted in blue in the image below) almost completely surround it on three sides. In 1949, when NYU claimed the southwestern corner of  Washington Square South for its new law school, the Reys were forced to relinquish their park side home and move a few blocks away to 82 Washington Place.