Washington Square Park Cache Traditional Geocache
New York Admin: Regrettably there has been no response from the cache owner placing me in a position where I must archive this cache. Caches archived by a reviewer or HQ staff for lack of maintenance or failure to respond can not be unarchived.
Washington Square Park Cache
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Size: 
(small)
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Welcome to Washington Square Park, in my opinion the best park in Manhattan. The cache is in a VERY muggle filled area so please please be careful. Don't forget to BYOP and POST PICTURES WITH THE CACHE :) (please don't leave anything inside because I don't want the weight to cause it to open up)
Since around the end of World War II, folksingers had been congregating on warm Sunday afternoons at the fountain in the center of the park. Tension and conflicts began to develop between the bohemian element and the remaining working class residents of the neighborhood. The city government began showing an increasing hostility to the use of public facilities by the public, and in 1947 began requiring permits before public performances could be given in any city park. In the spring of 1961 the new Parks Commissioner refused a permit to the folksingers for their Sunday afternoon gatherings, because "The folksingers have been bringing too many undesirable elements into the park." On Sunday, April 9, 1961, folk music pioneer Izzy Young, owner of the Folklore Center (who had been trying to get permits for the folksingers) and about 500 musicians and supporters gathered in the park and sang songs without a permit, then held a procession from the park through the arch at Fifth Avenue, and marched to the Judson Memorial Church on the other side of the park. At about the time the musicians and friends reached the church, the New York Police Department Riot Squad was sent into the park, attacked civilians with billy clubs, and arrested ten people. The incident made the front pages of newspapers as far away as Washington, D. C.. The New York Mirror initially reported it as a "Beatnik Riot" but retracted the headline in the next edition. These tensions did not die down for some time. The land was once divided by a narrow marshy valley through which Minetta Creek (or Brook) ran. In the early 17th century, a Native American village known as Sapokanican or "Tobacco Field" was nearby. They also owned the land known now as Washington Square Park before the Dutch attacked and drove them out. By the mid-17th century, the land on each side of the Minetta was used as farm land by the Dutch. The Dutch gave the land to slaves, thus freeing them, with the intention of using them as a buffer zone to hostile Native Americans outside the settlement. The slaves that received the land were told that, although they were no longer slaves, they had to give a portion of the profits they received from the land to the Dutch East India Company. Also, their children would be born as slave, rather than free. The tract was in the possession of African Americans from 1643 to 1664. Today, the area, then called "The Land of the Blacks," is Washington Square Park. The ex-slaves who owned "The Land of the Blacks" included Paulo D'angola. More information can be found at the exhibit "Slavery In New York" at the New-York Historical Society of Manhattan. It remained farmland until April 1797, when the Common Council of New York purchased the fields to the east of the Minetta (which were not yet within city limits) for a new potter's field, or public burial ground. It was used mainly for burying unknown or indigent people when they died. But when New York (which did not include this area yet) went through yellow fever epidemics in the early 19th century, most of those who died from yellow fever were also buried here, safely away from town, as a hygienic measure. A legend in many tourist guides says that the large elm at the northwest corner of the park, Hangman's Elm, was the old hanging tree. However, research indicates the tree was on the side of the former Minetta Creek that was the back garden of a private house. Records of only one public hanging at the potter's field exist. Two eyewitnesses to the recorded hanging differed on the location of the gallows. One said it had been put up at a spot where the fountain is now, the other placed it closer to where the Arch is now. However, the cemetery was closed in 1825. To this day, the remains of more than 20,000 bodies rest under Washington Square.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Abg ba gur tebhaq. Gur bayl cynpr jurer n aba anab pbhyq or. Zntargvp