Known as Manhattan’s Town Square, Bryant Park is home to a variety of community activities throughout the year. Featuring a unique landscape and notable monuments, the park highlights how an imaginative use of a space can create engagement for audiences across a city and beyond.
Named After William Cullen Bryant
Designated as public property in the late 1600s, what would eventually become Bryant Park originally served as a potter’s field but before becoming known as Reservoir Park on account of being next to the next to the Reservoir. In 1884, it was renamed as Bryant Park to honor the longtime editor of the New York Evening Post, William Cullen Bryant. The entire park went through a major transition when New York Public Library’s main branch was built on the site in 1911, redefining the layout and use of the space.
A 1934 redesign of Bryant Park enabled the community to reclaim the space in a profound manner. The renovated park featured a great lawn as well as hedges and later an iron fence that separated the park from the surrounding city streets. This reimagination of the space was just the first of many for Bryant Park, which experienced similar changes in the 1950s and 1970s. When the park was rebuilt in the 1990s, the library’s stacks were built underneath.
All of these improvements would ensure that the success of the park impacted the success of the surrounding neighborhood, much of which has been fueled by the engagement and activities that have been created throughout the year in Bryant Park.
The Monuments, Events and Activities of Bryant Park
The groomed one-acre lawn that resides in the middle of Bryant Park cultivates attention and activity across the year. The seasonal “Winter Village” with an ice rink and shops during the winter is the most notable but the lawn also hosts free summer movies.
A calendar of activities showcases how many different things take place in Bryant Park on a daily basis. Many of these activities have been driven by the engagement that the monuments and landscape of the Bryant Park have defined.
Dedicated in 1911, the William Cullen Bryant Memorial is arguably the most notable monument in the space. A bronze bust of Gertrude Stein, a bronze sculpture of William Earl Dodge and a bust of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe are a few of the other monuments located across the Bryant Park. The Fountain Terrace features the Josephine Shaw Lowell Memorial Fountain which was dedicated in 1912. The landmark is recognized as New York’s first public memorial dedicated to a woman.
Bryant Park Grill is just one of the establishments that utilize the identity of the park to connect with audiences, creating countless benefits for the surrounding community. The Brant Park Hotel uses this identity in a direct and indirect manner, further highlighting the economic impact of that it has cultivated across the neighborhood.
Mentioned as an ideal place to stretch out, dine and relax, Bryant Park has become a destination for both residents and visitors. All of this is thanks to an imaginative use of space that has and continues to define engagement and activities throughout the park and beyond.
An Imaginative Use of Urban Green Space
Visited by more than 12 million people each year, Bryant Park is one of the busiest public spaces in the world. This activity has been enabled on account of an imaginative use of urban green space in the middle of a city that might have otherwise been unremarkable or utilized for far more conventional purposes.
