Sherman Square

Last updated
Sherman Square Sherman Square jeh.jpg
Sherman Square
Street sign Sherman Square Street Sign (WTM by official-ly cool 136).jpg
Street sign

Sherman Square is a pocket park bounded by Broadway, Amsterdam Avenue, and West 70th Street on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, in New York City. It was named in 1891 for William Tecumseh Sherman who lived in the area and died that year. [1]

The park name is used to describe the neighborhood surrounding the entrances to the 72nd Street station, which are on traffic islands where Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue cross. [2]

The Sherman Square area and its much bigger neighbor Verdi Square on the north side of 72nd were dubbed “Needle Park” in the 1960s and 1970s because of illicit drug activity. This provided the title and general setting for the 1966 book by James Mills and its 1971 film adaptation The Panic in Needle Park , directed by Jerry Schatzberg and starring Al Pacino in his second role. [3] [4]

The fenced-in portion of Sherman Square protecting its vegetation is only 264 square feet and is actually a scalene triangle. It is on a paved much larger triangle. The fenced area has 17 feet facing 70th Street, 35 feet facing Broadway, and 30 feet facing Amsterdam.

The name of squares for triangular pieces of land reflected the original Commissioners' Plan of 1811 which called for the area to be built according to a master grid. New York City acquired the land by condemnation in 1849 when Broadway was being built through the area at an angle and was not on the grid. Other parcels of land on Broadway that have the square name but are irregular pieces of land include Herald Square and Times Square. [1]

The park’s size diminished in 1869 when 70th Street was built.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Broadway (Manhattan)</span> Avenue in New York

Broadway is a road in the U.S. state of New York. Broadway runs from State Street at Bowling Green for 13 mi (21 km) through the borough of Manhattan and 2 mi (3.2 km) through the Bronx, exiting north from New York City to run an additional 18 mi (29 km) through the Westchester County municipalities of Yonkers, Hastings-On-Hudson, Dobbs Ferry, Irvington, and Tarrytown, and terminating north of Sleepy Hollow.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Upper West Side</span> Neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City

The Upper West Side (UWS) is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It is bounded by Central Park on the east, the Hudson River on the west, West 59th Street to the south, and West 110th Street to the north. The Upper West Side is adjacent to the neighborhoods of Hell's Kitchen to the south, Columbus Circle to the southeast, and Morningside Heights to the north.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Commissioners' Plan of 1811</span> Street plan of Manhattan

The Commissioners' Plan of 1811 was the original design for the streets of Manhattan above Houston Street and below 155th Street, which put in place the rectangular grid plan of streets and lots that has defined Manhattan on its march uptown until the current day. It has been called "the single most important document in New York City's development," and the plan has been described as encompassing the "republican predilection for control and balance ... [and] distrust of nature". It was described by the Commission that created it as combining "beauty, order and convenience."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Union Square, Manhattan</span> Intersection and neighborhood in New York City

Union Square is a historic intersection and surrounding neighborhood in Manhattan, New York City, located where Broadway and the former Bowery Road – now Fourth Avenue – came together in the early 19th century. Its name denotes that "here was the union of the two principal thoroughfares of the island". The current Union Square Park is bounded by 14th Street on the south, 17th Street on the north, and Union Square West and Union Square East to the west and east respectively. 17th Street links together Broadway and Park Avenue South on the north end of the park, while Union Square East connects Park Avenue South to Fourth Avenue and the continuation of Broadway on the park's south side. The park is maintained by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stuyvesant Street</span> Street in Manhattan, New York

Stuyvesant Street is one of the oldest streets in the New York City borough of Manhattan. It runs diagonally from 9th Street at Third Avenue to 10th Street near Second Avenue, all within the East Village, Manhattan, neighborhood. The majority of the street is included in the St. Mark's Historic District.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Manhattan Valley</span>

Manhattan Valley is a neighborhood in the northern part of Upper West Side in Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded by West 110th Street to the north, Central Park West to the east, West 96th Street to the south, and Broadway to the west. It was formerly known as the Bloomingdale District, a name still in occasional use.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">72nd Street station (IRT Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line)</span> New York City Subway station in Manhattan

The 72nd Street station is an express station on the IRT Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line of the New York City Subway, located at the intersection of Broadway, 72nd Street and Amsterdam Avenue on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It is served by the 1, 2, and 3 trains at all times.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">St. Nicholas Avenue</span> Avenue in Manhattan, New York

St. Nicholas Avenue is a major street that runs obliquely north-south through several blocks between 111th and 193rd Streets in the New York City borough of Manhattan. The route, which follows a course that is much older than the grid pattern of the Commissioners' Plan of 1811, passes through the neighborhoods of Harlem, Hamilton Heights, and Washington Heights. It is believed to follow the course of an old Indian trail that became an important road in the 17th century between the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam and the British New England Colonies. In the post colonial era, it became the western end of the Boston Post Road. The road became a street when row housing was being built in Harlem during its rapid urban expansion following the end of the American Civil War.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Verdi Square</span> Public park in Manhattan, New York

Verdi Square is a 0.1-acre (400 m2) park on a trapezoidal traffic island on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. Named for Italian opera composer Giuseppe Verdi, the park is bounded by 72nd Street on the south, 73rd Street on the north, Broadway on the west, and Amsterdam Avenue on the east. Verdi Square's irregular shape arises from Broadway's diagonal path relative to the Manhattan street grid. The western half of the park is built on the former northbound lanes of Broadway, which were closed permanently in 2003 during a renovation of the New York City Subway's adjacent 72nd Street station. Verdi Square is designated as a New York City scenic landmark and is operated by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cooper Square</span> Square in Manhattan, New York

Cooper Square is a junction of streets in Lower Manhattan in New York City located at the confluence of the neighborhoods of Bowery to the south, NoHo to the west and southwest, Greenwich Village to the west and northwest, the East Village to the north and east, and the Lower East Side to the southeast.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rose Hill, Manhattan</span> Neighborhood in Manhattan, New York City

Rose Hill is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, between the neighborhoods of Murray Hill to the north and Gramercy Park to the south, Kips Bay to the east, the Flatiron District to the southwest, and NoMad to the northwest. The formerly unnamed area is sometimes considered to be a part of NoMad, because the name "Rose Hill" was chiefly used for the area in the 18th and 19th centuries, and is not very commonly used to refer to the area in the 2010s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Division Street (Manhattan)</span> Street in Manhattan, New York

Division Street is a one-way street in the Two Bridges neighborhood of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It carries westbound traffic from the intersection of Canal Street and Ludlow Street westward to Bowery.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">145th Street (Manhattan)</span> West-east street in Manhattan, New York

145th Street is a major crosstown street in the Harlem neighborhood, in the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is one of the 15 crosstown streets mapped out in the Commissioner's Plan of 1811 that established the numbered street grid in Manhattan. It forms the northern border of the Sugar Hill neighborhood within Harlem.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mitchel Square Park</span> Public park in Manhattan, New York

Mitchel Square Park is a small urban park in the Washington Heights neighborhood of the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is a two part, triangle-shaped park formed by the intersection of Saint Nicholas Avenue, Broadway and 167th Street.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">West Side Community Garden</span> Community garden in Manhattan, New York

The West Side Community Garden is a privately owned park in Manhattan, New York City, United States. It is located between West 89th Street and West 90th Street in the middle of the block between Amsterdam Avenue and Columbus Avenue.

Harry B. Mulliken was an early twentieth-century American architect and developer who built many of his works in New York City. Mulliken's apartment and hotel buildings are remarkable for their Beaux-Arts-style and broad use of architectural terra cotta set around flat, and often red, brick.

McKenna Square is a 0.24-acre public green space in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Upper Manhattan in New York City. The park is located in a median of West 165th Street, between Audubon and Amsterdam Avenues. The triangular site was created in 1917 in conjunction of the widening of West 165th Street and was transferred to Parks in 1937.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stuyvesant Farm</span> Farm in New Amsterdam

Stuyvesant Farm, also known as the Great Bowery, was the estate of Peter Stuyvesant, the last Dutch director-general of the colony of New Netherland, as well as his predecessors and later his familial descendants. The land was at first designated Bowery No. 1, the largest and northernmost of six initial estates of the Dutch West India Company north of New Amsterdam, used as the official residence and economic support for Willem Verhulst and all subsequent directors of the colony.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Apple Bank Building</span> Bank and apartment building in Manhattan, New York

The Apple Bank Building, also known as the Central Savings Bank Building and 2100 Broadway, is a bank building and residential condominium at 2100–2114 Broadway on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. Constructed as a branch of the Central Savings Bank from 1926 to 1928, it occupies a trapezoidal city block bounded by 73rd Street to the south, Amsterdam Avenue to the east, 74th Street to the north, and Broadway to the west. The Apple Bank Building was designed by York and Sawyer in the Renaissance Revival and palazzo styles, patterned after an Italian Renaissance-style palazzo.

References

  1. 1 2 "Sherman Square Highlights". New York City Department of Parks and Recreation.
  2. "Sherman Square · New York, NY 10023".
  3. Boys, Bowery (2007-11-27). "Ah, the bad ole days of Needle Park". The Bowery Boys: New York City History. Retrieved 2019-07-22.
  4. Baum, Geraldine (2004-03-22). "Needle Park? It's been pushed into the shadows". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2019-07-22.

Coordinates: 40°46′38″N73°58′56″W / 40.77722°N 73.98222°W / 40.77722; -73.98222