- Foley Square
Foley Square is a green space in
lower Manhattan ,New York City . The space is formed by the intersection ofDuane Street , Lafayette Street, Centre Street andPearl Street , and — by extension — the surrounding area in lowerManhattan on the site of the historic Five Points neighborhood and is named after a prominentTammany Hall district leader and localsaloon owner, Thomas F. "Big Tom" Foley (1852-1925). Originally, the land that forms Foley Square was in the middle ofCollect Pond , which was one of the original fresh water sources for the City of New York, but was drained and filled-in in 1811, by which time it had become severely polluted and implicated intyphus andcholera outbreaks."Foley Square" is dominated by its surrounding civic buildings, including the classic facades and colonnaded entrances of the 1933-built United States Courthouse, fronted by the Triumph of the Human Spirit Memorial by award-winning artist Lorenzo Pace, the New York County Supreme Court, the Church of St. Andrew, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals Foley Square Courthouse (renamed
Thurgood Marshall Federal Courthouse in 2003), the New York County Municipal Building, the Foley Square Federal Office Building and theJacob K. Javits Federal Building and Court of International TradeKenneth T. Jackson: "The Encyclopedia of New York City": The New York Historical Society; Yale University Press; 1995. P. 421.] .Also featured in the square are five
bronze historical medallions, set flush into areas of the surrounding sidewalks, telling the history of the park and its surroundings, including one for the so-called 'Negro Burial Ground' (an 18th century African-American burial ground unearthed during construction of the square). [http://www.nycgovparks.org/sub_things_to_do/attractions/public_art/monuments/african_american_experience/html/image_8.html] This burial ground has been preserved as "African Burial Ground National Monument ".Other features
The Foley Square Greenmarket operates year round at the corner of Centre Street between Worth and Pearl Streets, and offers baked goods as well as local farm picked fruits and vegetables which are guaranteed to have been harvested within three days of sale.
Because of its proximity to New York's Chinatown, every weekday morning the center island of the Foley Square is host to a large group of predominantly Chinese
Manhattanite s performing Tai Chi.In popular culture
"Foley Square" was the name of a television series which aired by the American television broadcast network
CBS from 1985-1986. [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088520/]Foley Square is often shown on the television series "Law & Order" and its spinoffs because of its long association with the New York County, New York State, and United States Executive and judicial buildings which are the main features.
The Sony Bravia advert "Play-Doh" was filmed in Foley Square August 2007.
In the film of
The Godfather (but not in the original novel),Corleone Family enforcer,Al Neri , assassinates Don Emilio Barzini in the steps of Foley Square.References
External links
* [http://www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com/bigmap/manhattan/lowermanhattan/foleysquare/ Photographs of Foley Square buildings and surroundings.]
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
