Friends of Verdi Square – an all-volunteer nonprofit formed in 2018 to look after the tiny park bounded by Broadway, Amsterdam Avenue, 72nd Street and 73rd Street – has some big dreams for the oddly-shaped outdoor urban space. But they’ll need to raise a whopping $50,000 to make it happen.
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“We are excited to announce new, comprehensive design plans for Verdi Square,” reads an email from the organization. “This is the most ambitious fundraising we have ever done – we hope you will help us reach our goal so that we might elevate the Verdi Square Park gardens to a new level of beauty,” reads the Friends’ website.
If the necessary funds are raised, park enhancements would include “new flowering plants, shrubs, grasses, sedges, trees, a new seating area and more.”
“These comprehensive plans will reinvigorate the Meadow with added color and texture, enhance the Woodland with increased plantings and a proposed seating area in front of the Verdi monument, add planters within the plaza, and introduce flowering trees and plants in the rose bed area.”
LaGuardia Design Group – a landscape architecture firm with offices in NYC, the Hamptons and Palm Beach – has created some free-of-charge blueprints which can be viewed here.
To learn more or to donate, please visit friendsofverdisquare.org/re-design.
This group, Friends of Verdi Square—whose members I actually see when they are out working (which seems often)—has done work that is remarkable.
I have become a more frequent user of the square as I now use it as a ‘destination’, a place I go to sit and observe which is easy for me as I live nearby.
One problem for users like me is the condition of the benches after several rainless days and several visits by the square’s flock of rock doves who must like the area as much as I do as evidenced by their leaving on the benches and table much grey matter making them, frankly, unusable.
I notice that the landscape architects did not create an imaginative name for THAT condition, though they did introduce ‘The Woodland’ and ‘The Meadow’. How about ‘Copse of Avian Excreta ‘ or something like that?
Excellent plan and great idea. Having worked with several design groups on building projects, 50k is a relative bargain, so I hope it’s raised and it happens. (But can we stop using that ridic adjective “whopping?”
I assumed the use of “whopping” in this context was tongue-in-check. And, as in most urban areas, when planning to sit in public areas, it is advisable to bring a spray bottle of cleaner and paper towels.
I walk through it very often and while it may need a facelift, $50K needs rather excessive to make it somewhat more attractive. Won’t change some of the users however. I remember when it was called Needle Park.
Appreciate all the time, energy, effort and hard work put forth by this group! One very important request….. PLEASE enforce NO SMOKING. Many thanks.
Better Help animal shelter and invest money in there!
Hey @alexandersoros you & pop do so much for NYC now it needs some help to reoxygenate the atmosphere with a NYC beautification equity ESG project which needs petty cash influx so please donate generously will you Alex at the friendsofverdisquare.org/re-design.