Tompkins Square Park

1834 - present

Tompkins Square Park opened in 1873 when it was considered the “Poor People’s Park. It was still considered a public park for children and community members to use for rest and leisure. There was art programming for youth offered in the Tompkins Square neighborhood such as the "Boys' Club of Tompkins Square on 287 East 10th Street that provides Photography and Sculpture [activities]" (Levy, Arts education in the city of New York guidance study, HathiTrust, #145 p. 117). According to the Opportunities for Recreation HathiTrust report, Tompkins Square Partk has 10,508 acreages and the facilities within the park included a "Band concert, playground, gymnasium, landscape features, athletic field" (Opportunities for Recreation, HathiTrust, #29 p. 25). Due to the economic downturn and working conditions in 1874, workers began to question whether Tompkins Square Park was public or private property. Communist workers would gather in Tompkins Square Park to organize and discuss their demands for better working conditions (Smith & Mitchell, 2018, p.107). On July 7, 1874, seven thousand men, women, and children gathered in a demonstration at Tompkins Square Park on January 13, 1874, to demand that Mayor Havemeyer meet the demands of the city's workers, but this was met with a police riot. (Smith & Mitchell, 2018, p.108). Between 1989 and 1991, Tompkins Square Park continued to be a site of resistance where over 200 unhoused people occupied the park to raise awareness of housing justice particularly the negative consequences of gentrification resulting in the rise in rent and homelessness as thoroughly discussed in Resistance: A radical political and social history of the Lower East Side.

Description of Tompkins Square as the Poor People's Park in a 1873 newspaper. Proletariat masses used Tompkins Square Park for various reasons such as poor children playing, workers' meetings, and political organizing
Descriptions of Art Classes offered in 1938 within the Tompkins Square Park neighborhood
Map from 1852 of the Public Parks across Manhattan. Tompkins Square Park is located on the bottom lef-handed corner of the map.
On July 5, 1874, sevent thousand individuals including Communist workingmen were protesting in Tompkins Square Park against the lack of relief programs provided and they were met with police repression and riot.
Photograph of Tompkins Square Park which depicts people reading books on park benches under large trees.
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Details

Category
Playground
Founder(s)
"This park honors Daniel D. Tompkins (1774–1825), who served as Governor of New York from 1807 to 1817 and as Vice President of the United States under James Monroe (1758-1831) from 1817 to 1825." (NYC Gov Parks, 2024).
Tags
Organizing, Public Park, Protests
Notes
Information about the founding of Tompkins Park listed in References

Location

  • Tompkins Square Park, E 10th St, New York, NY 10009, USA
    ? - ?

References

  1. NYC GOV Parks, Tompkins Square Park, (2024). https://www.nycgovparks.org/parks/tompkins-square park/history#:~:text=Bordered%20today%20by%20Avenues%20A,landscaped%20between%201835%20and%201850.
  2. Levy , F. (1938). Art education in the City of New York, a guidance study, by Florence N. Levy. HathiTrust. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015007560801&seq=31
  3. Citizen's Recreation Committee, HathiTrust (1909), Opportunities for recreation : afforded by the municipality of the city of New York and maintained by appropriation of public funds, https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nnc1.cu56603762&seq=29, #29 p. 25.
  4. Additional Resource: Van Horn, L. (2023, February 5). A history of Tompkins Square Park - Lespi-NYC. Lower East Side Preservation Initiative (LESPI). https://lespi-nyc.org/a-history-of-tompkins-square-park/
  5. The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Picture Collection, The New York Public Library. (1873-09-27). Poor people's parks - Tompkins Square Retrieved from https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47e0-cd05-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99
  6. Patterson, C., Flood, J., & Moore, A. (2007). Section Three-Tompkins Square, Resistance: A radical political and social history of the Lower East Side. Seven Stories Press. pp. 291-401
  7. Neil Smith, & Don Mitchell. (2018)."Chapter 7: A Riot Is Now in Progress in Tompkins Square Park." Revolting New York : How 400 Years of Riot, Rebellion, Uprising, and Revolution Shaped a City. University of Georgia Press. pp. 106-107.
  8. Kronstadt & Paterson. (2007). “Section Three: Tompkins Square, Chapter 2: Excerpts from Each One Teach One: Up and Out of Poverty.” Resistance: A radical political and social history of the Lower East Side (C. Patterson, J. Flood, & A. Moore, Eds.). Seven Stories Press, pp. 320-323.