Historical Analysis

Historic Cooper Square and Cooper Triangle (what we will call Cooper Trapezoid) are located at the northern end of the Bowery along the western edge of the East Village. They have been an important intersection since the time of the Lenape, when trade routes crossed here. The Bowery was the lane created to reach Peter Stuyvesant’s “Bouwerie,” the land grant given to him by the Dutch West India Company that established New Amsterdam. As the city grew, and with the creation of the Commissioners’ Plan of 1811, Cooper Square emerged at the intersection of The Bowery, Third Avenue and Fourth Avenue. It has been at the intersection of an evolving and diverse array of immigrant, elite, working class, and artistic communities for hundreds of years, and is seeing enormous change in the current moment.

The East Village is the area east of the Bowery and Third Avenue, between 14th Street on the north and Houston Street on the south. The East Village contains three subsections: Alphabet City, Little Ukraine, and the Bowery. Originally occupied by the Lenape Native Americans, Dutch settlers divided the area into plantations, or “Bouweries.” By the early 19th century, New York’s elite had established big estates, later giving way to a large immigrant population- including Germans in the 1830s, Irish in the 1840s, Italians and eastern European Jews in 1880s and Puerto Ricans and Mexicans in the 1950s and 60s- becoming part of the nearby Lower East Side.

In the 1950s the Beat poets found a home here and by the late 1960s, many avant-garde artists and musicians moved into the area, supporting a vibrant alternative artistic culture that spawned Pop Art, Punk Rock, New Wave, and the East Village identity emerged. More recently, gentrification has threatened the diverse and edgy character of the east Village

Encompassing the area from Chatham Square to Cooper Square, the Bowery was a hub of culture, and home to Irish, Chinese, Jewish, Italian, and German immigrants.

With the establishment of the Bowery Theatre in 1826, it was cemented as NYC’s first entertainment district, making the surrounding community connected to many aspects of the 20th century entertainment industry, such as tap dancing, vaudeville performance, improvisational jazz, and much more.

Loisaida, or Avenue C, is an area of the Lower East Side with a large Hispanic, Latino, and Nuyorican population. The term “Loisaida” was created by Puerto Rican poet and activist Bimbo Rivas in his 1974 poem, ‘Loisaida’.

The monument to Peter Cooper, a philanthropist and inventor who lived in New York City from 1791 to 1883, has stood in Cooper Triangle since May 29, 1897. The bronze statue, which sits under and on top of a marble and granite canopy and pedestal, memorializes Cooper, who most notably founded Cooper Union in 1859.

The park itself was first named Stuyvesant Square in 1850, then Fourth Avenue Park, and then was finally named Cooper Park in 1883. Later in the early 1900s, the fence around the park was put up, and in 1938, new paths were created as well. In 1987, the monument was restored by the Municipal Art Society, the Art Commission, and Parks & Recreation, through the new Adopt-a-Monument Program.

Cooper Square and Triangle are situated in the middle of the Bowery, New York City’s oldest street. In 1987, the monument was restored by the Municipal Art Society, the Art Commission, and Parks & Recreation, as per the new Adopt-a-Monument Program.

In 2011, there was a redesign of Cooper Square that did a complete overhaul of the Square’s design, making it look how it does currently.

Notable Places, People and Institutions of the East Village:

CBGB (Country Bluegrass Blues) - birthplace of punk rock, open from 1973-2006; many iconic artists performed here in their early days (Blondie, The Ramones, Patti Smith, Talking Heads, Joan Jett, Green Day, AC/DC, and more!)
- The Bowery was also home to many other artists: Mark Rothko, Eva Hesse, Robert Frank, Maya Lin, Patricia Field, Martin Scorsese, Amiri Baraka, etc.
Loisaida - Nuyorican and Hispanic community in the Lower East Side
People’s Theatre - home of Yiddish theater
Bowery-Houston Community Farm - first community garden in NYC, started by Liz Christy and the Green Guerillas
St. George’s Ukrainian Catholic Church
Grace Church School - founded by the Grace Church in 1894; the high school division located in Cooper Square was opened in 2012
Katz’s Delicatessen
Third Avenue Elevated (“the El”): constructed in 1878, was elevated over the entirety of the Bowery, and merged with Third Avenue at Cooper Square
McSorely’s Ale House
In 1860, Abraham Lincoln wrote the anti-slavery speech that won him the presidential election, “Right Makes Might”, which he delivered at Cooper Union.
Tompkins Square Park - historic site of many protests that fought for workers’, immigrant, and unhoused rights
- Draft Riots - 1863
- Tompkins Square Riot - 1874
- Tompkins Square Park Riot - 1988