New York City
The second stop on 2015’s Christmas wanderings take me down to Madison Square Park and its Christmas tree. The first community Christmas tree in America was illuminated here in Madison Square Park on Christmas Eve in 1912. This is one of the city’s oldest urban public spaces, dating back to 1686 when it served as a Potter’s Field most of the 18th Century. In the early 19th Century, it was part of ‘The Parade’ an area devoted to the United States Army with an arsenal, soldiers barracks and a drilling area. The United States Army arsenal in 1825 became the New York House of Refuge for the Society for the Protection of Juvenile Delinquents as the name indicates was for young men under 16 that the court detained and confined; the building eventually was burned down in 1839. It was in 1839 that a farmhouse at what today is Fifth Avenue and 23rd Street, became William "Corporal" Thompson’s roadhouse which he named Madison Cottage after our fourth president James Madison. Hard to believe with the way Manhattan is today, but the roadhouse was the last stop for those on the way out of the city, heading north or the first stop on those entering the city in the 1840’s. So as the area grew and progressed, the open urban square became Madison Square and the Avenue to its east became Madison Avenue, after the Thompson’s cottage, rather than as a direct tribute to former president James Madison. The current park actually opened officially in 1847 as a park.
The Torch and Arm of the Statue of Liberty were on display here at the park from 1876-1882 as part of the campaign to raise funds for the pedestal for the Statue of Liberty. Many significant edifices surround Madison Square Park, the famous Flatiron building (flic.kr/p/pvS3Go ), the New York Life Building which now stands in the location that in the early 19th century housed Vanderbilt’s train depot before it moved uptown to become Grand Central Depot, which then became open no roof Madison Square Garden # 1 where PT Barnum first held his circus and then became Madison Square Garden # 2 before New York Life built it headquarters here. In this image is the MetLife Tower (posted daytime view earlier flic.kr/p/eRHhpF ), which in now a hotel but was for many years the headquarters of Metropolitan Life Insurance which had a short stint as the tallest building in the world in the early 20th century.
To me in my early 50’s, I’m totally amazed at how the park has changed. When I was in high school in the late 1970’s, this was not a place to come, unless you were looking for some weed or a joint in which case, you had come to right place. The seedy element at Madison Square Park made it a place my friends and I avoided; it just wasn’t a nice place. 2015, well quite different, while I was taking these shots, 9:45 PMish (you can see the time on the MetLife Tower 4 story clock), there were couples sitting in the park (actually a pair in front of the tree taking a selfie with a selfie-stick), people eating over at the Shake Shack, pretty safe.
Taken with Nikon J1 with Nikor 10-30MM F3.5-5.6 VR lens handheld, RAW file processed in Adobe Lightroom.
New York City
The second stop on 2015’s Christmas wanderings take me down to Madison Square Park and its Christmas tree. The first community Christmas tree in America was illuminated here in Madison Square Park on Christmas Eve in 1912. This is one of the city’s oldest urban public spaces, dating back to 1686 when it served as a Potter’s Field most of the 18th Century. In the early 19th Century, it was part of ‘The Parade’ an area devoted to the United States Army with an arsenal, soldiers barracks and a drilling area. The United States Army arsenal in 1825 became the New York House of Refuge for the Society for the Protection of Juvenile Delinquents as the name indicates was for young men under 16 that the court detained and confined; the building eventually was burned down in 1839. It was in 1839 that a farmhouse at what today is Fifth Avenue and 23rd Street, became William "Corporal" Thompson’s roadhouse which he named Madison Cottage after our fourth president James Madison. Hard to believe with the way Manhattan is today, but the roadhouse was the last stop for those on the way out of the city, heading north or the first stop on those entering the city in the 1840’s. So as the area grew and progressed, the open urban square became Madison Square and the Avenue to its east became Madison Avenue, after the Thompson’s cottage, rather than as a direct tribute to former president James Madison. The current park actually opened officially in 1847 as a park.
The Torch and Arm of the Statue of Liberty were on display here at the park from 1876-1882 as part of the campaign to raise funds for the pedestal for the Statue of Liberty. Many significant edifices surround Madison Square Park, the famous Flatiron building (flic.kr/p/pvS3Go ), the New York Life Building which now stands in the location that in the early 19th century housed Vanderbilt’s train depot before it moved uptown to become Grand Central Depot, which then became open no roof Madison Square Garden # 1 where PT Barnum first held his circus and then became Madison Square Garden # 2 before New York Life built it headquarters here. In this image is the MetLife Tower (posted daytime view earlier flic.kr/p/eRHhpF ), which in now a hotel but was for many years the headquarters of Metropolitan Life Insurance which had a short stint as the tallest building in the world in the early 20th century.
To me in my early 50’s, I’m totally amazed at how the park has changed. When I was in high school in the late 1970’s, this was not a place to come, unless you were looking for some weed or a joint in which case, you had come to right place. The seedy element at Madison Square Park made it a place my friends and I avoided; it just wasn’t a nice place. 2015, well quite different, while I was taking these shots, 9:45 PMish (you can see the time on the MetLife Tower 4 story clock), there were couples sitting in the park (actually a pair in front of the tree taking a selfie with a selfie-stick), people eating over at the Shake Shack, pretty safe.
Taken with Nikon J1 with Nikor 10-30MM F3.5-5.6 VR lens handheld, RAW file processed in Adobe Lightroom.