"Open to the People for Their Free Assembly": Tompkins Square Park, 1850-1880: Co-Winner of the 2010 JSH Student Essay Competition

Abstract

On September 5, 1866, the New York Times celebrated the reopening of a transformed Tompkins Square, which had become a drill ground for the First Division of the New York National Guard. Gone were the flagged walkways and trees; in their place, workers had begun preparing to pave the 10.5-acre park. The Times reporter proclaimed this a “wonderful change in the square,” though one element of his account suggests that perhaps not everyone agreed. The event, a performance of military power by a force whose express mission included preserving local order, required extensive police presence. This security detail of 120 officers was drawn from the 17th Precinct and its neighboring districts, and was charged with “preserv[ing] order and keep[ing] the ground clear of all unauthorized spectators.”1 The author noted only that the officers achieved “considerable success” in securing the event, but the presence of such aggressive policing suggests that those unauthorized spectators might have comprised a threatening and riotous mob.