Jackson Square Park
Jackson Square Park is an urban park in the Greenwich Village Historic District in Manhattan, New York City. The 0.227 acres (920 m2) park is bordered by 8th Avenue on the west, Horatio Street on the south, and Greenwich Avenue on the east. The park interrupts West 13th Street.
The very basics of its triangular shape were set first by the intersection of two Native American footpaths which would grow into unique, foundational Greenwich Village streets, and later the imposition of the 1811 Commissioners' Plan—a brand-new street grid that comprises most of Manhattan's modern-day streets that ultimately would see 8th Avenue driven down through the intersection.
The triangular area moved from an unimproved public rallying place to a classic Victorian viewing garden, then a children's playground, and finally a contemporary mixed-use space.
Two footpaths would emerge as foundational streets in what is today’s Meatpacking district and West Village of Manhattan. One footpath led up from the riverbank trading station called “Sapohanikan” and was both largely perpendicular to the shore and aligned closely to the solar equinox of spring and fall. It would become what we today call Gansevoort Street. Its parallel offspring, Horatio Street, forms the southern border of the park. The other footpath came up from the south and would become what we today call Greenwich Avenue, which forms the east side of the park.
By the late 18th century the footpaths had evolved into roads, with connecting roads emerging to the north. The city's first war memorial was erected in 1762 among farmland at the northern terminus of Greenwich Avenue (known then as Monument Lane) a few hundred feet north of what is now Jackson Square Park. It was an obelisk honoring British Major General James Wolfe who died in the Battle of Quebec. By 1773, the monument no longer appeared on local survey maps, though why it was dismantled is unknown.
On March 22, 1811 the New York State Legislature adopted the Commissioners' Plan of 1811, the visionary but rigid grid system of streets to the north. But the decision to have 8th Avenue continue south below 14th Street appears to have not been implemented until the 1830s. This 8th Avenue extension would become the western side of the park. At the same time, Gansevoort Street was truncated by half a block, therefore no longer intersecting with what is Greenwich Avenue, in an effort to simplify the multitude of intersecting roads.
...
Wikipedia