Verdi Square is a 0.1-acre (400 m2) park on a trapezoidal traffic island on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. Named for Italian opera composer Giuseppe Verdi, the park is bounded by 72nd Street on the south, 73rd Street on the north, Broadway on the west, and Amsterdam Avenue on the east. Verdi Square's irregular shape arises from Broadway's diagonal path relative to the Manhattan street grid. The western half of the park is built on the former northbound lanes of Broadway, which were closed permanently in 2003 during a renovation of the New York City Subway's adjacent 72nd Street station. Verdi Square is designated as a New York City scenic landmark and is maintained by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation.
The eastern half of Verdi Square contains the Verdi Monument, sculpted in 1906 by Pasquale Civiletti [it]. The monument contains a dark-granite pedestal with four statues of characters from Verdi's operas; a statue of Verdi stands atop the pedestal. Surrounding the monument is the original park, a triangular site with plantings. The western half of the park contains a head house that serves as an entrance to the 72nd Street station. Designed by Richard Dattner & Partners and Gruzen Samton, the head house contains artwork that references Verdi's opera Rigoletto. Each September, the park hosts a series of free concerts called Verdi Square Festival of the Arts.
The portion of Broadway around modern-day Verdi Square opened in 1703 and was added to the Commissioners' Plan of 1811, which created Manhattan's street grid, in the late 19th century. The city government acquired the site of Verdi Square in 1887. The site was originally the northern part of Sherman Square, under which the subway station was built in 1904. The Verdi Monument was installed in 1906 following a fundraising effort led by newspaper founder Carlo Barsotti, and the site around the monument was named for Verdi in 1921. The park was for several years beginning in the early 1970s (and is still, sometimes) referred to as “Needle Park,” after the 1970 film “Panic in Needle Park,” referring to the selling and use of heroin in that film (even though the site where that film was set, and much of it was shot, was Sherman Square, a similarly shaped but characterless grassy street divider a few blocks south on Broadway). The Verdi monument was restored in the late 1980s, and the park was significantly expanded in the early 2000s.
^"National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. November 2, 2013.
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