When you focus on buildings, as I usually do, it’s easy to overlook the spaces between them. They seem like a mere negative, the places where buildings are not, but that’s absolutely wrong. Public spaces are where part of the daily life of a city plays out, and how those spaces are designed, how they are used, and how they change over time are critical to how that life is lived and how it is seen. Personally, I don’t think that the advent of the internet’s virtual public space has changed or will change that.
I was in Union Square recently, and it is far from its normal self. Many of the storefronts are boarded up, a consequence of the stores themselves being closed because of the COVID-19 lockdown, and of a fear of looting during the recent demonstrations. There were also some demonstrators there, focussed on their message rather than looting. The daily demonstrations in New York have included an interesting series of locations: the Grand Army Plazas (both of them, Manhattan and Brooklyn), Columbus Circle, Washington Square, Bryant Park, Union Square, Cadman Plaza, and the Barclays Center. That’s seven small public parks (three of which double as traffic circles/rounded-rectangles) and a very new plaza in front of a sports arena. What they all have in common is that they are public spaces readily accessible from the street and with nearby subway stations. In other words, they are good places to make yourself heard.
The picture above shows the funeral procession for Abraham Lincoln, which travelled across a large swathe of the nation, passing through Union Square. Public mourning is one of the ancient uses of urban public space. Here are some others:
A political unity rally, in this case with a “Stereograph showing a crowd of approximately 200,000 people gathered in Union Square to rally and hear speeches in support of the union” on Lincoln’s inauguration day in 1861:
People with a united political purpose meeting together, in this case “labor leader Joseph James Ettor speaking during the Brooklyn barbers’ strike of 1913” in Union Square:
Or people with a united social purpose, in this case “pedestrians walking along with the “Schutzenfest” [a target-shooting fair] procession as it passes through Union Square” in 1868:
Union Square, in addition to its daily routine as a place to sit on a bench and watch pigeons fight for the crumbs from your sandwich, is where New Yorkers have gone to speak they mind for a long time.
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