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Gawd … I’ve been parading back and forth in front of that guy all morning — and he just doesn’t notice me. Maybe he’s gay…
Image by Ed Yourdon
Note: this photo was published in an Aug 20, 2011 issue of Everyblock NYC zipcodes blog titled "10003."
Moving into 2013, the photo was published in an undated (late Mar 2013) blog titled "Jak se nau?it chodit na podpatcích."
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New York City is full of familiar places that local residents visit, make use of, or walk through on a regular basis — but whose history they know far less about than they realize. Ask anyone how Times Square got its name, for example, and you’re likely to get a blank stare or a vague mumbled reference to the New York Times, without any idea of what it was called previously (LongAcre Square) or when it got its current name (1904).
Another example is Union Square, which occupies the area between 14th and 17th Street, where Broadway, Park Avenue South, and Fourth Avenue converge. Anyone even slightly familiar with American History would assume that the square was constructed during or shortly after the Civil War, and that it was intended as a memorial to the victorious Union (Yankee) armies. Indeed, that assumption is bolstered by the statue of Abraham Lincoln in the square, and the imposing statue of George Washington on horseback. (There’s also a statue of the Marquis de Lafayette, but most Americans don’t have a clue who he is; and they probably don’t much attention to the statue of Mahatma Gandhi in the southwest corner of the square, either.)
But as an informative Wikipedia article points out, Union Square has nothing at all to do with the Civil War. Instead, its name celebrates the fact that "here was the union of the two principal thoroughfares of the island" — i.e., where Broadway and Fourth Avenue (the former Bowery Road) came together. In 1815, the New York state legislature decreed that this spot — which had previously been a potter’s field — would henceforth be a public commons for the City of New York, and it was first named Union Place. It was renamed Union Square in 1832. I’ll spare you the rest of the historical details, other than noting that the nation’s first Labor Day celebration, on September 5, 1882, involved a crowd of 10,000 workers who paraded up Broadway and past a reviewing stand in Union Square.
Much more recently, in 1976, a local environmental council established a "Greenmarket program," which provided space for regional small farmers to sell their fruits, vegetables, and other products in the city. The greenmarket operates on Mondays, Wednesday, Fridays, and Saturdays all year; and according to Wikipedia, 250,000 customers a week purchase 1,000 varieties of fruits and veggies at the market.
Greenmarkets are usually great places for photographers like me — fruits and veggies are colorful and interesting, and the people who buy and sell the products are typically even more interesting. I took a few photographs the Union Square "scene" a few years ago, when I was wandering around the lower Broadway area; but I thought it was time for a return visit, with more time devoted to all of the individual booths, stalls, and activities. I don’t think the Union Square greenmarket is quite as colorful and intriguing as the market in Campo di Fiori, Rome that I photographed a couple months ago; and I’m not even sure it measured up to the farmer’s market in Portland, OR that I photographed this spring. But it was interesting enough, and I’m glad I did it …
So that’s what you’ll see in this Flickr set. As usual, I took several hundred photographs, and then proceeded to delete the vast majority of them. But the 70 photos that survived the editing process will hopefully give you a slightly better idea of what happens in this little corner of New York City several times each week…
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