[A children’s garden opened in Tompkins Square Park in 1934.]
Ugh. Meant to post this much earlier… from the EVG inbox...
Tompkins Square Park on Exhibit: From Bouwerie To Greenmarket
Sept. 28 & Oct. 5, 11 a.m. - 4 p.m. at the Market Information tent
Salt marsh, military parade ground, park, site of dissent...Tompkins Square Park and the land on which it stands contributes a rich history to New York City and the East Village. Join GrowNYC, the East Village Parks Conservancy, and the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation as they explore the history of Tompkins Square in images from its beginnings as the bouwerie (or farm) of Peter Stuyvesant through today.
There are more details and archival images at Off the Grid.
5 comments:
Those kids on the right are dressed just like Spanky, Darla and Alfalfa from The Little Rascals.
Holy moley! There's so much going on over there today! I have to get over there!
Back then kids dressed like adults and acted like grownups. Today adults dress like children and act like babies.
Touché, Gio. Touché.
The 1934 photo seems to be looking toward the northwest corner, Avenue A & East 10th Street, with St. Nicholas Church in the background upper left. Does the children's area correspond to the dog run of today? It's very hard to tell. Many of us protested the mass eviction of the homeless from Tompkins in 1991, and I kept the desk appearance ticket I got for possession of burglary tools after the 9th precinct seized the bolt-cutter I took to the 8th Street entrance. Following the year (15 months?) of closure, the sidewalks of Tompkins were completely re-arranged, but the bathrooms are the same, and not too many of the old trees were cut down. The quasi-military force returned to empty the encampment on East 8th Street in October of 1991, and we also sat down and blocked the bulldozers and sanitation trucks there as well. (NYC Bulldozes Squatters' Shantytowns, NY Times, 10/16/1991)
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