Union Square, Manhattan

The area around present-day Union Square was initially farmland. The western part of the site was owned by Elias Brevoort,[5]^:221 who later sold his land to John Smith in 1762;[12] by 1788 it had been sold again to Henry Spingler (or Springler).[13][14] On the eastern part of the land were farms owned by John Watts and Cornelius Williams. The northwestern corner of the park site contained 1 acre (0.40 ha) of land owned by the Manhattan Bank, which supposedly was a "refuge" for businesses during New York City's yellow fever epidemics.[5]^:222

When John Randel was surveying the island in preparation for the Commissioners' Plan of 1811, the Bloomingdale Road (now Broadway) angled away from the Bowery at an acute angle. Because it would have been difficult to develop buildings upon this angle, the Commissioners decided to form a square at the union.[15] In 1815, by act of the state legislature, this former potter's field became a public commons for the city, at first named Union Place.[5][16] Union Place originally was supposed to extend from 10th to 17th Streets. Several city officials objected that Union Place was too large and requested that it be "discontinued", and in 1814, the New York State Legislature acted to downsize the area by making 14th Street the southern boundary.[17][18][19]^:3

In 1831, at a time when the city was quickly expanding and the surrounding area was still sparsely developed, Samuel Ruggles, one of the founders of the Bank of Commerce and the developer of Gramercy Park to the northeast, convinced the city to rename the area as "Union Square". In doing so, Ruggles also got the city to enlarge the commons to 17th Street on the north and extend the axis of University Place to form the square's west side, thus turning the common from a triangular to a rectangular area.[20][19]^:5 By 1832, the area had been renamed Union Square.[17][18][21] Ruggles obtained a fifty-year lease on most of the surrounding lots from 15th to 19th Streets, where he built sidewalks and curbs. In 1834, he convinced the Board of Aldermen to enclose and grade the square, then sold most of his leases and in 1839 built a four-story house facing the east side of the Square.[22] The park at Union Square was completed and opened in July 1839.[17]

George Washington (Henry Kirke Brown, 1856) in the middle of Fourth Avenue at 14th Street, c.1870

The statue in its current location in the middle of the park

A fountain was built in the center of Union Square to receive water from the Croton Aqueduct, completed in October 1842.[17][23] In 1845, as the square finally began to fill with affluent houses, $116,000 was spent in paving the surrounding streets and planting the square, in part owing to the continued encouragement of Ruggles.[17] The sole survivors of this early phase, though they have been much adapted and rebuilt, are a series of three- and four-story brick rowhouses, 862–866 Broadway, at the turn where Broadway exits the square at 17th Street. The Everett House on the corner of 17th Street and Fourth Avenue (built 1848, demolished 1908) was for decades one of the city's most fashionable hotels.[24]

In the early years of the park a fence surrounded the square's central oval planted with radiating walks lined with trees. In 1872, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux[25] were called in to replant the park, as an open glade with clumps of trees.

At first the square, the last public space that functioned as the entrance to New York City,[26] was largely residential: the Union League Club first occupied a house loaned for the purpose by Henry G. Marquand at the corner of 17th Street and Broadway. After the Civil War the neighborhood became largely commercial, and the square began to lose social cachet at the turn of the twentieth century, with many of the old mansions being demolished.[17] Tiffany & Co., which had moved to the square from Broadway and Broome Street in 1870, left its premises on 15th Street to move uptown to 37th Street in 1905; the silversmiths Gorham Company moved up from 19th Street in 1906. The last of the neighborhood's free-standing private mansions, Peter Goelet's at the northeast corner of 19th Street, made way for a commercial building in 1897.

The Rialto, New York City's first commercial theater district, was located in and around Union Square beginning in the 1870s. It was named after Venice's Rialto, a commercial district.[27][28][29] The first facility to open within the Union Square Rialto was the Academy of Music, which opened at Irving Place in 1854.[6] The theater district gradually relocated northward, into less expensive and undeveloped uptown neighborhoods, and eventually into the current Theater District.[6][27][30]

Before the Civil War, theatres in New York City were primarily located along Broadway and the Bowery up to 14th Street, with those on Broadway appealing more to the middle and upper classes and the Bowery theatres attracting immigrant audiences, clerks and the working class. After the war, the development of the Ladies' Mile shopping district along Fifth and Sixth Avenues above 14th Street had the effect of pulling the playhouses uptown, so that a "Rialto" theatrical strip came about on Broadway between 14th and 23rd Streets, between Union Square and Madison Square.[31][6]

Union Square in 1908

At the same time, a transition from stock companies, in which a resident acting company was based around a star or impresario, to a "combination" system, in which productions were put together on a one-time basis to mount a specific play, expanded the amount of outside support needed to service the theatrical industry. Thus, suppliers of props, costumes, wigs, scenery, and other theatrical necessities grew up around the new theatres. The new system also needed an organized way to engage actors for these one-off productions, so talent brokers and theatrical agents sprang up, as did theatrical boardinghouses, stage photographers, publicity agencies, theatrical printers and play publishers. Along with the hotels and restaurants which serviced the theatregoers and shoppers of the area, the Union Square Rialto was, by the end of the century, a thriving theatrical neighborhood, which would soon nonetheless migrate uptown to what became known as "Broadway" as the Rialto became subsumed into the more vice-oriented Tenderloin entertainment district.[31]

By the first decade of the 20th century, Union Square had grown into a major transportation hub with several elevated and surface railroad lines running nearby, and the New York City Subway's 14th Street–Union Square station having opened in 1904.[32]^:2[33] With the northward relocation of the theater district, Union Square also became a major wholesaling district with several loft buildings, as well as numerous office buildings.[34]^:2[6] The office structures included the Everett Building, erected at the northwest corner of Park Avenue South and 17th Street in 1908;[35]^:4 the Germania Life Insurance Company Building, erected at the northeast corner of the same intersection in 1910–1911;[32]^:6 and the Consolidated Edison Building, constructed three blocks south at 14th Street between 1910 and 1914.[36]^{:5, 8}

During this era, many of the older homes on Union Square were converted into tenements for immigrants and industrial workers. Numerous artists relocated into the attics of the remaining mansions along 14th Street, where they had their studios. The 1939 WPA Guide to New York City said that by the 1920s, "south side of Fourteenth Street became virtually an ex-tension of Greenwich Village."[6] Further, real estate values around Union Square had declined by the 1920s, with "burlesque houses, shooting galleries, and shoddy businesses" lining the square.[6] Throughout the decade, most buildings on the eastern part of the square were purchased by department stores S. Klein and Ohrbach's.[34]^:2[6] Real estate activity resumed in the late 1920s, and according to a 1928 piece in The New York Times, “several smaller operations are planned or are under way in the neighborhood".[37]

Union Square was named a National Historic Landmark in 1997, primarily to honor it as the site of the first Labor Day parade.[3][38][39]

Following the September 11 attacks in 2001, Union Square became a primary public gathering point for mourners. People created spontaneous candle and photograph memorials in the park and vigils were held to honor the victims. At the time, non-emergency vehicles were temporarily banned and pedestrian travel was restricted in Lower Manhattan below 14th Street. The Square's tradition as a meeting place in times of upheaval was also a factor in its being used as a vigil gathering site.

The renovated pavilion at the north end of the park in February 2011

In March 2008, an eighteen-month renovation began on the northern end of the park. Proponents of the plan described it as the completion of a renovation of Union Square Park that began in the mid-1980s that would improve the park by increasing the amount and quality of playground space, improving the quality and function of the public plaza, rehabilitating the badly deteriorating bandshell structure, improving the working conditions for park employees, and maintaining the "eyes on the street" presence of a restaurant at the heart of the park. Protests and political action in response to the original renovation plans resulted in a reduction in the degree to which the pavilion was to be renovated, a reduction in the total amount of space that the restaurant would occupy, and an increase in the amount of dedicated play space, but stiff opposition remains to the idea that any commercial uses might occupy the pavilion. Despite the fact that the overall amount of play space in the park would be increased as a result of the renovation, those critical of the plan claimed that the bandshell pavilion itself ought to be converted to play space.[40][41] The status of the historic pavilion building was later brought before the State Supreme Court.[42][43] In early 2009, a judge dismissed the lawsuit against the renovation, paving the way for a seasonal restaurant in the pavilion.[44]

One element of contention not related to the restaurant concession is the inclusion of a single line of street trees, spaced 30 feet (9.1 m) apart, along the north side of the plaza. The inclusion of trees was made possible without reducing the usable gathering space of the plaza by the simultaneous decision to remove a painted median strip, that had separated eastbound and westbound traffic along 17th Street, thus increasing the northern limits of the plaza by several feet. The "temporary" metal rails, welded together to make a continuous fence along the north side of the site, were removed as part of the renovation of the plaza. A double line of trees along 17th Street had been planted years earlier as a monument to victims of the Armenian Genocide.

During the renovation the Union Square Greenmarket was temporarily relocated to the west side of the park, returning to the north end by April 2009.

In 1976, the Council on the Environment of New York City (now GrowNYC) established the Greenmarket program, which provided regional small family farmers with opportunities to sell their fruits, vegetables and other farm products at open-air markets in the city. There were originally seven farmers at the first Greenmarket, and their selection sold out by noon.[59] That summer, two more markets opened in New York City. Despite some backlash from local merchants and supermarkets who believed the Greenmarket was cutting into their profits, more markets opened in the city.

Today, the Union Square Greenmarket – the best-known of the markets – is held Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays between 8 AM and 6 PM year round. The market is served by a number of regional farmers, as the average distance between farmers and the market is 90 miles (140 km). During peak seasons, the Greenmarket serves more than 250,000 customers per week,[60] who purchase more than one thousand varieties of fruits and vegetables can be found at the Greenmarket;[61] and the variety of produce available is much broader than what is found in a conventional supermarket.[62]

Union Square is also known for the Union Square Holiday Market, which is held November 23 through December 24. Temporary booths are filled with over 100 craftsmen, who sell items ranging from candles and perfume to knitted scarves and high-end jewelry.

The former Kellogg's cafe at Union Square; the AT&T Wireless store is underneath it and next to the entrance

Union Square is a popular meeting place, given its central location in Manhattan and its many nearby subway routes. There are many bars and restaurants on the periphery of the square, and the surrounding streets have some of the city's most renowned (and expensive) restaurants. S. Klein's department store promoted itself in the mid-20th century as an "On the Square" alternative to higher prices uptown,[63] and late in the century several big-box chain stores established a presence, including Barnes & Noble in the Century Building,[64] Babies "R" Us in the former United States Communist Party headquarters,[65] and Staples in the Spingler Building.[66]

The W New York Union Square, part of the W Hotels chain, is located at the park's northeast corner, in the former Guardian Life building.[67] Additionally, the Hyatt Union Square New York hotel is located at the park's southeast corner, in a former post office.

The park has historically been the start or the end point for many political demonstrations. Although the park was known for its labor union rallies and for the large 1861 gathering in support of Union troops, it was actually named for its location at the "union" of Bloomingdale Road (now Broadway) and Eastern Post Road (now extinct) decades before these gatherings.[6][68] In April 1861, soon after the fall of Fort Sumter, it was the site of a patriotic rally of perhaps a quarter of a million people that is thought to have been the largest public gathering in North America up to that time. In the summer of 1864 the north side of the square was the site of the Metropolitan Fair.

Union Square has been a frequent gathering point for radicals of all stripes to make speeches or demonstrate. In 1865, the recently formed Irish republican Fenian Brotherhood came out publicly and rented Dr. John Moffat's brownstone rowhouse at 32 East 17th Street, next to the Everett House hotel facing the north side of the square, for the capitol of the government-in-exile they declared.[69][70] On September 5, 1882, in the first Labor Day celebration, a crowd of at least 10,000 workers paraded up Broadway and filed past the reviewing stand at Union Square. On March 28, 1908, an anarchist set off a bomb in Union Square which only killed himself and another man.[71]

A patriotic demonstration: Presentation of colors before the Union League Club, 1864, by Edward Lamson Henry

May Day 1913, strikers and protesters rally in Union Square, with signs in Yiddish, Italian and English

2006 Union Square protest

On August 21, 1893, Emma Goldman took the stage at Union Square to make her "Free Bread" speech to a crowd of overworked garment workers. She also addressed a crowd on May 20, 1916, on the need for free access to birth control which was banned by the Comstock laws. Her visits to Union Square pulled hundreds of followers; some of these rallies resulted in her arrest. Union Square has been used as a platform to raise awareness about the Black Lives Matter movement.

The Square's shopping district saw strikes in the S. Klein and Ohrbach department stores in 1934. White collar workers were among the worst paid in Great Depression era New York City, with union memberships being highly discouraged by store managers and often seen as fireable offenses. These strikes often involved acts of disobedience by the workers as many of them did not want to lose their jobs.[72] This period saw Union Square as a gathering point for many of the cities socialist and communist groups. The centennial of Union Square was seen as a thinly veiled effort to displace those elements with its draping of the square with flags and police demonstrations of anti protester drills.[73]

Spectators watch as a street chess player plays bullet chess with a customer in Union Square.

The Villager, a local newspaper, reported in 2013 that most of the street chess players at Washington Square Park—where Bobby Fischer had played—had moved their games to Union Square because the latter had more foot traffic.[74] Street chess players play fast chess with passers-by for three to five dollars a game, with time controls of five minutes on each side being the most common.[75] Writer Lauren Snetiker at the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation also documents this migration of the historical Washington Square Park chess scene to Union Square, noting the "dozens of chess players [who] sit on crates and bring their own boards... as there are no permanent ones like there are in Washington Square Park".[76]