Foley Square is a green space in lower Manhattan, New York City. The space is formed by the intersection of Duane Street, Lafayette Street, Centre Street and Pearl Street, and — by extension — the surrounding area in lower Manhattan on the site of the historic Five Points neighborhood and is named after a prominent Tammany Hall district leader and local saloon owner, Thomas F. "Big Tom" Foley (1852-1925). Originally, the land that forms Foley Square was in the middle of Collect 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 in typhus and cholera 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 Thurgood Marshall U.S. Courthouse (known before 2003 as the Foley Square Courthouse), where the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit is based, the New York County Municipal Building, the Foley Square Federal Office Building and the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building and Court of International Trade[1].
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).[1] This burial ground has been preserved as "African Burial Ground National Monument".
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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 Manhattanites 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. [2]
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 advertisement "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
- ^ Kenneth T. Jackson: The Encyclopedia of New York City: The New York Historical Society; Yale University Press; 1995. P. 421.
External links
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Coordinates: 40°42′54″N 74°00′10″W / 40.714899°N 74.002812°W
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