| Stuyvesant Square | |
|---|---|
 The central fountain in the western portion of the park; the park is bisected bySecond Avenue. In the background isSt. George's Episcopal Church | |
 Interactive map of Stuyvesant Square | |
| Location | Between15th Street,17th Street, Rutherford Place, andNathan D. Perlman Place,Manhattan,New York City |
| Coordinates | 40°44′01″N73°59′02″W / 40.73361°N 73.98389°W /40.73361; -73.98389 |
Stuyvesant Square is the name of both a park and its surrounding neighborhood in theNew York Cityborough ofManhattan. The park is located between15th Street,17th Street, Rutherford Place, andNathan D. Perlman Place (formerly Livingston Place).Second Avenue divides the park into two halves, east and west, and each half is surrounded by the original cast-iron fence.[1]
The neighborhood is roughly bounded by14th Street to the south,18th or19th Street to the north,First Avenue to the east, andThird Avenue to the west.[2][3][4] It is part ofManhattan Community Board 6.[5]
Manhattan Community Board 6 does not mark neighborhood boundaries on its map, but centers "Stuyvesant Park" in the area south of 20th Street, north of 14th Street, east of Third Avenue, and west of First Avenue.[6] In city documents, New York Citycensus tract 48.97 (later known as tract 48) has been used as an approximation for Stuyvesant Park.[7] To the east of the neighborhood isStuyvesant Town, to the west is theUnion Square area, and to the south is theEast Village.[2][8]
For its entry on "Stuyvesant Square and North," theAmerican Institute of Architects'AIA Guide to New York City uses the area east ofThird Avenue, from14th Street to23rd Street. InAIA Guide, Stuyvesant Square is adjacent toUnion Square andGramercy Park to the west, theEast Village to the south, andKips Bay to the north.[9]
The Stuyvesant Park Neighborhood Association serves residents "from East 14th Street north to East 23rd Street and from Stuyvesant Town west toward Irving Place and Gramercy Park."[10]
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In 1836,Peter Gerard Stuyvesant (1778–1847) – the great-great-grandson ofPeter Stuyvesant[11] – and his wife Helen (or Helena) Rutherfurd reserved four acres of the Stuyvesant farm and sold it for a token five dollars to the City of New York as a public park, originally to be called Holland Square, with the proviso that the City of New York build a fence around it. As time passed, however, no fence was constructed, and in 1839, Stuyvesant's family sued the City to cause it to enclose the land. Not until 1847 did the City begin to improve the park by erecting the magnificent, 2800 foot long cast-iron fence, which still stands as the oldest cast-iron fence in New York City.[12] (The oldest fence in New York is that aroundBowling Green.[13]) In 1850 two fountains completed the landscaping, and the park was formally opened to the public. The public space joinedSt. John's Square (no longer extant), the recently formedWashington Square and the privateGramercy Park as residential squares around which it was expected New York's better neighborhoods would be built.
In the early 1900s, Stuyvesant Square was among the city's most fashionable addresses. The Stuyvesant Building, at 17 Livingston Place on the eastern edge of the square, was home to the publisherGeorge Putnam,Harper's Bazaar editorElizabeth Jordan andElizabeth Custer, the widow of GeneralGeorge Armstrong Custer.[14]
The opening ofSt. George's Church, located on Rutherford Place and 16th Street (built on land obtained from Peter Stuyvesant, 1848–1856; burnt down in 1865;[11] remodeled byC.O.Blesch and L. Eidlitz, 1897)[9][15] and the Friends Meeting House and Seminary (to the southwest) (1861, Charles Bunting) attracted more residents to the area around the park. The earliest existing houses in the district, in theGreek Revival style, date to 1842–43, when the city's residential development was first moving north of14th Street, but the major growth in the area occurred in the 1850s.[1] Fashionable houses were still being built as late as 1883, whenRichard Morris Hunt's Sidney Webster House at 245East 17th Street – now the East End Temple synagogue[16] – was completed,[1] but alreadyGerman andIrish immigrants, had begun moving into new rowhouses and brownstones in the neighborhood, followed byJewish,Italian andSlavic immigrants.[2][17]
Other than Beth Israel, other hospitals were located in the neighborhood as well. The New York Infirmary for Women and Children was founded at 321 East 15th Street by the pioneering woman physician, Dr.Elizabeth Blackwell.[17] The New York Lying-In Hospital on Second Avenue at 17th Street, is now condominiums, but the Hospital for Joint Diseases, a unit ofNYU Medical Center is located across the avenue. Other now non-existent hospitals included theSalvation Army's William Booth Memorial Hospital, Manhattan General, and St. Andrew's Convalescent Hospital.[17] Because of the number of hospitals in the district, there were many doctor's offices on the side streets, along with quacks and midwives who preyed upon the area's immigrant population.[17]
Stuyvesant Square Park, like many other city parks, was extensively rehabilitated in a more populist manner during the 1930s, when the 19th-century plan was modified by Parks CommissionerRobert Moses' landscape architectGilmore D. Clarke, with the addition ofcomfort stations, playgrounds and other built amenities. The park reopened in 1937; the 1980s saw restorations of the two 1884 fountains, the preservation of the cast-iron fence, and relaying the original bluestone sidewalks in two ellipses, with renovated lawns, shrubs and flower beds. A few old trees,English elm andLittle-leaf linden, still flourish. Further contributions to the park have includedGertrude Vanderbilt Whitney'sPeter Stuyvesant (1941) and Ivan Mestorvic'sAntonín Dvořák (1963, moved here 1997).
The park is operated and maintained by theNew York City Department of Parks and Recreation. The Stuyvesant Park Neighborhood Association works on behalf of park patrons in the surrounding neighborhoods to preserve the park's historic beauty.
Directly around the square, in the eponymous neighborhood, are theFriends Meeting House and Seminary andSt. George's Episcopal Church – once attended byJ.P. Morgan – both on Rutherford Place. On the eastern side isBeth Israel Medical Center – part of which, theRobert Mapplethorpe Residential Treatment Facility for AIDS patients, was built on the site ofBohemian composerAntonín Dvořák's 1893 home at 327East 17th Street.[18]Hotel 17, formerly a residential building called the St. George, is on the northwestern corner of the square at 223–225 East 17th Street.[19] Nearby, within the neighborhood, is the oldStuyvesant High School building, still in educational use as the "Old Stuyvesant Campus".
The square and its immediate environs were designated theStuyvesant Square Historic District in 1975.[1] The Friends Meeting House, St. George's and Stuyvesant High School are all New York City landmarks, designated in 1967, 1969 and 1997, respectively,[1] as are the threeItalianate brick row houses with deep front yards and cast iron verandas at 326, 328 and 330 East 18th Street,[1] built in 1852–1853 at the instigation of Cornelia Stuyvesant Ten Broeck.[20]
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