Cooper Square

Cooper Square is a junction of streets in Lower Manhattan, New York City located at the confluence of the neighborhoods of Bowery to the south, NoHo to the west and southwest, Greenwich Village to the west and northwest, the East Village to the north and east, and the Lower East Side to the southeast.

Cooper Square looking uptown in 1957
Cooper Square looking uptown in 2008

A map of Cooper Square (in red), showing some locations of interest in the area:
1. Cooper Union Foundation Building
2. McSorley's Old Ale House
3. Cooper Union New Academic Building
4. Cooper Square Hotel
5. Village Voice
6. Public Theater (Astor Library)
7. Colonnade Row / Astor Place Theatre (Blue Man Group)
8. Clinton Hall (site of the Astor Opera House)
9. KMart (Wanamaker Department Store Annex)
10. Hamilton Fish House

Description

Beginning at its southern end where the Bowery crosses East 4th Street, the road then splits in two, both with Cooper Square addresses, until they cross Astor Place between East 8th Street and St. Marks Place and become Fourth Avenue (the western street) and Third Avenue (the eastern street).[1][2]

Because Bowery, Third Avenue and both sides of Cooper Square are two-way streets, the intersection is complex, and difficult for pedestrians to navigate, especially considering that it is part of a city-approved through-truck route.[3] The New York City Department of Transportation has announced plans to "normalize" traffic, increase the size of the park in the middle of the square, and create a new community park in the area.[4]

History

When the square was initially opened as a public space in 1850, it was named "Stuyvesant Square", despite there already being a "Stuyvesant Square" about a half-mile north on Second Avenue. It was renamed for Peter Cooper, the 19th Century industrialist and philanthropist, after his death in 1883.[5][6] In 1853, Cooper had broken ground for Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, an institution founded on the belief that high-quality education should be available to all who qualified, including women – a radical notion at the time – without cost. It continued to provide every student with a full-tuition scholarship until 2014.[7] Frederick A. Peterson's Cooper Union Foundation Building on the north end of the square, the oldest existing American building framed with steel beams,[8] still stands where it was located when it opened in 1859, but the interior was extensively reconstructed in 1975 not only to modernize it, but also to fulfill one of Cooper's plans which was never realized at the time: the installation of a round elevator. The exterior of the building was restored in 1999 as well.[9]

Downtown of the Foundation Building is a small park, Cooper Triangle, which includes a monument dedicated to Peter Cooper.[10] Across the street, at 41 Cooper Square, is the school's newest building, the New Academic Building, designed by Thom Mayne of Morphosis.[11][12]

The Village Voice's headquarters are on the western side of the square, as are classroom buildings of Grace Church School and Kaplan, Inc.[13][14][15] The sleek, modern high-rise Cooper Square Hotel at 25 is one of the newest buildings on the square.[16][17]

The New York City Department of Transportation's "Reconstruction of Astor Place and Cooper Square" plan[18] calls for some changes to be made to Cooper Square beginning in 2013. The western leg of the square will be a northbound bus-only lane, from a two-way multi-use roadway. The confusing intersection of the two legs at Fifth Street would become a simple "Village Plaza", with sidewalk extensions and a small amphitheater on the western sidewalk. Finally, Cooper Triangle would be renovated, and expanded to make a new "Cooper Walk" leading up to Cooper Union. New trees would be planted up and down the square on both sides.[18]

  • The Cooper Union's Foundation Building has anchored the north end of the square since 1859
  • The monument to Peter Cooper sits between the Foundation Building and the park at Cooper Triangle
  • #61: This building was built in 1867 as a bank, but has been a church since 1937. (New York City Landmark, 1969[19])
  • #41: Cooper Union's New Academic Building, designed by Thom Mayne, opened in Summer 2009
  • #35: The modest building on the left was owned in the early 19th century by a great-grandson of Peter Stuyvesant.[20] It was demolished for new construction.
  • #25: The luxury The Standard, East Village hotel, an ultra-modern 21-story tower, opened in 2008 as the Cooper Square Hotel
  • #36: As of December 2012, houses the headquarters of The Village Voice and of digital firms including curbed.com and 9Threads.

See also

References

Notes

  1. New York City Department of Transportation "Bowery - Houston - Bleecker Transportation Study (Congestion Analysis) p.4-2 "Third and Fourth Avenues converge at Cooper Square to become Bowery..."
  2. Rosenberg, Andrew and Dunford, Martin. The Rough Guide to New York City New York: Penguin, 2012. ISBN 1405390220. "Just east of Astor Place is Cooper Square, a busy crossroads formed by the intersection of Bowery, Third and Fourth avenues and St. Mark's/East 8th Street..."
  3. "NYC Through Truck Routes" on the NYC Department of Transportation website (June 2010)
  4. Pedestrians and Sidewalks: East Village, Astor Place - Cooper Square" NYC Department of Transportation website
  5. "S" Archived September 5, 2012, at Archive.today on Old Streets of New York]
  6. Moscow, Henry (1978). The Street Book: An Encyclopedia of Manhattan's Street Names and Their Origins. New York: Hagstrom Company. ISBN 978-0-8232-1275-0.
  7. Kaminer, Ariel (April 23, 2013). "College Ends Free Tuition, and an Era". The New York Times. Retrieved May 26, 2013.
  8. Actually, steel railroad tracks used as beams. White, Norval & Willensky, Elliot (2000). AIA Guide to New York City (4th ed.). New York: Three Rivers Press. ISBN 978-0-8129-3107-5.
  9. White, Norval & Willensky, Elliot (2000). AIA Guide to New York City (4th ed.). New York: Three Rivers Press. ISBN 978-0-8129-3107-5.
  10. "Cooper Triangle : NYC Parks". Nycgovparks.org. Retrieved June 6, 2014.
  11. "The Civic Value of a Bold Statement". The New York Times. June 5, 2009.
  12. "Cooper Union | Morphopedia | Morphosis Architects". Morphopedia. Retrieved June 6, 2014.
  13. "New York About Us Village Voice". Villagevoice.com. May 21, 2014. Retrieved June 6, 2014.
  14. "Grace Church School: Community". Gcschool.org. Archived from the original on June 22, 2014. Retrieved June 6, 2014.
  15. "Kaplan Test Prep & Admissions". Store.kaptest.com. Archived from the original on January 9, 2014. Retrieved June 6, 2014.
  16. "The Story" Archived October 28, 2011, at the Wayback Machine at the Cooper Square Hotel website
  17. "Cooper Square Hotel" coverage at Curbed
  18. "Reconstruction of Astor Place and Cooper Square" New York City Department of Transportation (January 6, 2011)
  19. New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission; Dolkart, Andrew S.; Postal, Matthew A. (2009). Postal, Matthew A. (ed.). Guide to New York City Landmarks (4th ed.). New York: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-0-470-28963-1., p.65
  20. Moss, Jeremiah (July 23, 2008). "35 Cooper Square". Jeremiah's Vanishing New York. Retrieved December 21, 2012.


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