Located on the eastern side of LaGuardia Place, there is a collection of open spaces known as Fiorello La Guardia Park. This is a small neighbourhood park not far from Washington Square Park and New York University.
Once a deserted area, The Friends of La Guardia Place raised money in the early 1990s to transform it into a park.
Fiorello La Guardia Park consists of several planting beds along with a community garden and a children’s playground. It is so narrow that some have called it a “sidewalk with plants”.
There is seating along the park where you can take a seat and enjoy a breather.
How Fiorello La Guardia Park Came About
The land that Fiorello La Guardia Park is located on was originally slated for the construction of a connector for the Lower Manhattan Motorway on Fifth Avenue South.
This was to be a 10-lane highway cutting through the Soho and Little Italy neighborhoods.
The project was the brainchild of Robert Moses (1888–1981), chairman of the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority. If realised it would have driven a highway through the centre of Washington Square Park to the north.
Eventually, the project was never realized.
The site eventually became a public plaza.
Then, The Friends of La Guardia Place organization led landscaping improvement initiatives in the early 1990s to transform the space in a park.
Naming of Fiorello La Guardia Park
Fiorello La Guardia Park is named the former Mayor of New York.
La Guardia was born on December 11, 1882, at 177 Sullivan Street in Manhattan’s Little Italy. This was the area in which he grew up.
He had a law degree from New York University and was sworn in a mayor in 1934. He was the first Italian-American to serve in congress.
La Guardia made his distinctive mark on city politics over the ensuing 12 years. He centralised much of the City government, unified the public transportation system, outlawed illegal gambling, and built a tonne of bridges, parks, and airports.
Throughout the 1930s and the beginning of the 1940s, he began an unprecedented expansion of the New York City parks system.
He died on September 20, 1947.
Statue of Mayor La Guardia
As part of the landscaping works, The Friends of La Guardia commissioned a sculpture as part of the enhancements for the area.
In 1994, a bronze life-sized statue of Mayor La Guardia by sculptor Neil Estern (1926-2019) that was unveiled at Fiorello La Guardia Park.
The dynamic looking statue shows La Guardia in mid-stride, with his hands in expressive motion and with his mouth wide open as if in mid speech.
The statue is at La Guardia Place near Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village.
Fiorello La Guardia Park Playground
Another feature of the park is the Fiorello La Guardia Park Playground.
The small playground has a low slide as well as a small climbing slope.
The Fiorello La Guardia Park Playground is open from 7 am to 6 pm (Nov. 1 to March 1), and 7 am to 9 pm (March 2 – Oct. 31).
The park is located at La Guardia Place between West 3 Street and Bleecker Street in Manhattan.
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