Early usage The land was once divided by a narrow marshy valley through which
Minetta Creek (or Brook) ran. or "Tobacco Field" was nearby. By the mid-17th century, the land on each side of the Minetta was used as farm land by the Dutch. The Dutch gave the land, then outside the city limits (Wall Street) to Angolan residents of the colony, intending for their plots and settlement to serve as a buffer zone to Native Americans outside the settlement. In 1643, a group of "half-freed" slaves and elders such as Domingo Anthony, Manuel Trumpeter and Catalina Anthony, received land grants to build and maintain farms in the areas containing and surrounding Washington Square Park. The families who received the land were no longer slaves, but had to give a portion of the profits they received from the land to the
Dutch West India Company and pay annual land fees. Their children would be born as slaves, rather than free. The area became the core of an early African American community in New York, then called the
Land of the Blacks and later "Little Africa". Among those who owned parcels in what is now Washington Square Park was Paulo D'Angola and his wife
Reytory Angola. It remained farmland until April 1797, when the
Common Council of New York purchased the fields to the east of the Minetta (which were not yet within city limits) for a new
potter's field, or public burial ground. It was used mainly for burying unknown or indigent people when they died. But when New York (which did not include this area yet) went through
yellow fever epidemics in the early 19th century, most of those who died from yellow fever were also buried here, safely away from town, as a hygienic measure. However, research indicates the tree was on the side of the former Minetta Creek that was the back garden of a private house.
Creation of Washington Square collection In 1826, Alderman Abraham Valentine "introduced a resolution to re-appropriate an old potter's field into a military parade ground," and the city bought the land west of Minetta Creek, the square was laid out and leveled, and it was turned into the Washington Military Parade Ground. Military parade grounds were public spaces specified by the city where volunteer militia companies responsible for the nation's defense would train. The streets surrounding the square became one of the city's most desirable residential areas in the 1830s. The protected row of Greek Revival style houses on the north side of the park remains from that time. In 1849 and 1850, the parade ground was reworked into the first park on the site. More paths were added and a new fence was built around it. In 1871, it came under the control of the newly formed
New York City Department of Parks, and it was redesigned again, with curving rather than straight secondary paths. The temporary plaster and wood arch was so popular that in 1892, a permanent
Tuckahoe marble arch, designed by the New York architect
Stanford White, was erected, standing and modeled after the
Arc de Triomphe, built in Paris in 1806. During the excavations for the eastern part of the arch, human remains, a coffin, and a gravestone dated to 1803 were uncovered below ground level. The
statue of Giuseppe Garibaldi was unveiled in 1888. Hayes, former chairman of the Washington Square Park Committee and member of the Greenwich Village Community Planning Board, a local resident and mother of four sons, started a public outcry for the park in 1952 when a large, modern apartment building was constructed on the northwest corner of Washington Square North and Fifth Avenue. When then-Manhattan
borough president Hulan E. Jack suggested an elevated pedestrian walkway over a four-lane road through the park, Ms. Hayes initiated "Save the Square!", a seven-year battle to keep automobiles out of the quiet area. Though several different proposals were given for a roadway in the park, Hayes and her followers rejected them all. Seeking to "best serve the needs of children and adults of this family community," Hayes in turn presented her own proposal: 1.75 acres (700 m2) of roadway would be converted to parkland, a paved area would be created for emergency access only, and all other vehicles would be permanently banned from the park. This plan received widespread support, including that of then-Congressman
John Lindsay, as well as Washington Square Park West resident Eleanor Roosevelt. After a public hearing in 1958, a "ribbon tying" ceremony was held to mark the inception of a trial period in which the park would be free of vehicular traffic. In August 1959, the efforts of Ms. Hayes and her allies paid off; from that time forward Washington Square Park has been completely closed to traffic. A plaque commemorating her tireless crusade can be seen in the park today. Hayes's papers are archived at the
New-York Historical Society.
Mid- and late 20th century -designed
Bobst Library (on right) Following the end of
World War II,
folksingers had been congregating on warm Sunday afternoons at the fountain in the center of the park. Tension and conflicts began to develop between the bohemian element and the remaining working-class residents of the neighborhood. The city government began showing an increasing hostility to the use of public facilities by the public and, in 1947, began requiring permits before public performances could be given in any city park. In the spring of 1961, the new parks commissioner
Newbold Morris refused a permit to the folksingers for their Sunday afternoon gatherings, because "the folksingers have been bringing too many undesirable [
beatnik] elements into the park." On April 9, 1961, folk music pioneer
Izzy Young, owner of the Folklore Center—who had been trying to get permits for the folksingers—and about 500 musicians and supporters gathered in the park and sang songs without a permit, then held a procession from the park through the arch at Fifth Avenue, and marched to the Judson Memorial Church on the other side of the park. At about the time the musicians and friends reached the church, the
New York City Police Department Riot Squad was sent into the park, attacked civilians with
billy clubs, and arrested 10 people. The incident made the front pages of newspapers as far away as Washington, DC. The
New York Mirror initially reported it as a "Beatnik Riot", but retracted the headline in the next edition, although tensions remained for a while. The bus-turnaround loop at the northern end of the park, surrounding Washington Square Arch, was modified in 1961. Part of the old loop was closed and replaced with turf, and a set of stanchions were installed around the remaining parts of the loop. In 1962, Manhattan borough president
Edward R. Dudley announced plans to close off two vehicular roadways in Washington Square Park that were used by emergency vehicles, as well as the bus turnaround loop. This move would add of parkland. As part of a redevelopment of the park, a skating rink and
bandshell would have been reconstructed. Later that year, a committee was organized to appoint a landscape architect for an $800,000 renovation of Washington Square Park. The city studied a plan to add a fence around Washington Square Park in 1973. Four pedestrians were killed in a car crash at the park in 1992, prompting NYU to suggest closing the section of University Place along the eastern side of the park. The proposal was highly controversial among local residents.
Early 21st-century renovation NYC Parks first considered renovating the park in 2004, though the proposal was controversial. In 2005, the iconic fountain in the center of the park was officially named the Tisch Fountain following a $2.5 million donation. This change was met with some backlash from the community, especially considering that the Parks Department orchestrated the naming without consulting the City Council. In December 2007, NYC Parks began construction on a project to redesign and refurbish Washington Square Park, which at the time was projected to cost $16 million. Changes to the park included moving the fountain off center to improve its visual alignment with the arch when viewed from above, replacing the perimeter fence with a taller fence, and flattening and shrinking the central plaza, the park's politically contested gathering space. The plan also called for felling dozens of mature trees and installing ornamental water plumes in the fountain. Another lawsuit challenging the art commission's approval of the plan was dismissed. Two more lawsuits questioning the environmental review of the renovation project were heard in 2007 by the New York County Supreme Court, then dismissed. Upon the completion of phase one of the park's renovation on May 22, 2009, the Coalition for a Better Washington Square Park, a private organization, began raising money to "hire off-duty cops and maintenance workers to patrol the park" by the summer of 2010. On June 2, 2011, the eastern half of the park was reopened to the public, leaving only the park's southwest corner under construction. In mid-August 2012, the new granite benches heated up to in the sun, seemingly vindicating community members who had charged that the renovations were primarily to discourage public use of the park. The entire renovation was completed in 2014 for $30.6 million. In July 2020, the northwest lawn was reopened after a yearlong restoration which included new grass and sod for the over 39,000 square feet of green space. Funding for the $170,000 project was provided by
Ray Dalio's Dalio Philanthropies. In 2026,
Manhattan Community Board 2 proposed that the city government consider adding permanent gates at the park's entrances. At the time, the
New York City Police Department put up temporary barricades at night to enforce a midnight curfew, but people still entered the park after-hours. == Cultural importance ==