The Last Hurrah for Traffic in the Square

This is one of a series of blog posts which highlights the information found in our new Village Independent Democrats collection in our Preservation History Archive.

For decades traffic was allowed to freely flow through Washington Square Park, causing much of the park to essentially be an extension to Fifth Avenue. The battle to remove this traffic was hard fought by Greenwich Village residents over the span of several decades, and in response to several different plans for traffic patterns in the park. The most controversial of these was proposed by the infamous Parks Commissioner Robert Moses, who in the early 1950s approved a plan for a four lane wide sunken roadway through the park as part of the Title-I Redevelopment plan for the area.

Luckily, the community fought back. This battle was lead by local resident and community activist Shirley Hayes, who, with the help of community residents and other political figures including Eleanor Roosevelt, were able to ward off this plan. They also worked to fight traffic in Washington Square Park in general, and after a sixth month trial period in 1958, the park was closed to cars for good the following year. Unfortunately, this did not include buses, and the Fifth Avenue bus continued to use the park as a turnaround point.

Although this was a big improvement from the constant flow of traffic from cars, the bus turnaround still required a good portion of the park, and could still be dangerous to children and other park visitors. Removing buses from the park soon become a key part of the Village Independent Democrats (VID) advocacy work, and at the forefront of their battle against Tammany Hall’s last boss, Carmine DeSapio.

DeSapio, who was the then Democratic District Leader, had been supportive of closing the park to cars in 1958. And his support of the plan, had played an important in it being passed. However, when it came time to fight for the park to be closed to buses, he did not participate. At this time the VID were trying remove DeSapio from his position as Democratic District Leader. It took several elections for the VID to successfully unseat DeSapio, and in 1961, they were campaigning for Candidates Carol Greitzer and James Lanigan in order to do so.

As candidates, Greitzer and Lanigan worked hard to close the park to buses. This included meeting with city officials, such as then-Parks Commissioner Newbold Morris. They also proposed several alternative bus routes, and as seen in our Village Independent Democrats Archive, on July 20th, 1961 Carol Greitzer spent several hours riding around in bus with City Officials in order to demonstrate potential routes. Their advocacy work on the topic was highlighted throughout their campaigning materials, and issues of the Village Independent Democrats News.

Greitzer and Lanigan ultimately won the election, successfully defeating DeSapio and removing Tammany Hall’s power in local politics. However, it was not until August of 1963, that buses were permanently barred from the park. The New York Times published an article on this, which highlighted the work done by the Village Independent Democrats in order for this to happen.

Much of this information comes from the latest addition to our Preservation History Archive, the Village Independent Democrats Collection: 1955-1969. Check out this collection to learn more about the group, and the important contributions they made to Greenwich Village and all of New York City.