Verdi Square, at Broadway and West 72nd Street, is one of New York’s oldest parks.  It was acquired by the Parks Dept in 1887 and has a strong musical heritage.

In 1906, the Italian American community of New York erected a statue of famed composer Giuseppe Verdi in the Square, which then changed its name from Sheridan Square.  The statue depicts Verdi flanked by four of his most popular characters: Falstaff, Leonora of Forza del Destino, Aida, and Otello.  Over 10,000 people attended the unveiling, with music by innumerable marching bands and a chorus of 300 children.

The 1904 opening of the Ansonia Hotel on Broadway and 73rd Street strengthened Verdi Square’s musical connections. The grandest hotel of its time, it became the residence of singers Enrico Caruso, Fyodor Chaliapin, Lauritz Melchior, conductor Arturo Toscanini, composer Igor Stravinsky and impresarios Florenz Ziegfeld and Sol Hurok and authors Theodore Dreiser and Elmer Rice.  All of them strolled through adjoining Verdi Square, as did American icons George and Ira Gershwin who lived just down the street on Riverside Drive. 

In the 1960’s Verdi Square deteriorated and became a haunt of drug dealers and addicts, memorialized in the 1971 film noire, “Panic in Needle Park”, starring Al Pacino.  In the 1970’s, neighborhood residents and businesses reclaimed Verdi Square, refurbishing the park and goading the city into stronger policing. In 1974, Verdi Square was designated a Scenic Landmark by the Landmarks Preservation Commission.  Bertolli USA, Inc. established a permanent monument maintenance endowment fund and WBAI radio classical music announcer Harry Fleetwood (who had been instrumental in developing Parks Commissioner Benepe’s love of music in his youth) created a Verdi Square landscape endowment in memory of his brother, James H. Fleetwood.  In 2004, as part of burgeoning West Side residential development, the Metropolitan Transit Authority opened a new IRT station on Verdi Square and the Parks Department totally reconstructed Verdi Square Park.  The park’s new plaza area is home to the Verdi Square Festival of the Arts.