Washington Square tombstone surfaces

Workers recently dug up a 210-year-old tombstone in the middle of the ongoing construction in Washington Square Park at the corner of Sullivan and West 4th Street.

The tombstone read, “Here lies the body of James Jackson who departed this life the 22nd day of September 1799 aged 28 years native of the county of Kildare Ireland.”

Construction workers were actually expecting to find bones. And in fact, they have already found four intact skeletons and several human bones so far. They were not expecting to find tombstones.

Washingtonsquarepark.wordpress.com is a blog that has been keeping track of the reconstruction of the park. They were actually the first to break the news to the public about the tombstone find. Their source was Greenwich Village resident Matt Kovary. He noticed a six-foot hole dug in the construction site and reported it to the blog.

He described to them that there were two people taking photos of the tombstone and when he asked them about it, they admitted that they were not authorized to speak about it.

Before it was a park, Washington Square Park was actually a potter's field from 1797 to 1825. Webster's dictionary defines a potter's field as "a public burial place for paupers, unknown persons and criminals."

Washington Square Park has had many uses over the years. The land the park was built on was originally a marsh. After that it became a potter’s field. Madison Square Park had a potter's field established in 1794, which was actually moved to Washington Square Park in 1797.

After this time, the park was used for public executions. From this, there is a legend about “Hangman’s Elm,” which is a 110-foot tall English Elm that stands on the Northwest corner of the park on which people were supposedly hanged from. In 1826, the Washington Military used the land as parade grounds.

The following year, the land officially became a public park. It was named after George Washington, who was inaugurated in New York. Since then, it has developed into the heart of Greenwich Village, where musicians, artists, students and residents can gather and relax.

"In a sense, it's kind of disrespectful to be building it on top of dead people. It's like something you hear in horror stories. They must have had some knowledge of it and then like 210 years later they find skeletons in the closet,” sophomore Paige Nowak said.

"I'm not really into parks, but it's creepy. Why would you build a park where children play? I don't know if you've seen Paranormal Activity, but I believe in ghosts," junior Tanish Sethi said.

Nowak continued, “On the other hand, what's the big deal if you need a place to build a park. Space is limited in New York so what affect can building it on an old graveyard have? It was such a long time ago that it's not so big of an issue. It's definitely creepy regardless."

In fact, many New York City parks were built over potter's fields and burial grounds. According to a newsletter on Nycgovparks.org called The Daily Plant, the potter’s fields were supposed to be built “out of town.”

"New York expanded so quickly that the town ended up engulfing all the land in Manhattan aside from these old cemeteries. When these burgeoning neighborhoods sought open spaces for recreation, all they had left were the old burial grounds.

Since there were no headstones on these paupers’ fields, nineteenth-century New Yorkers turned their heads and turned burial grounds into parade grounds. They were (in north-south order) James J. Walker Park, Washington Square, Union Square, Madison Square, and Bryant Park," Nycgovpark.org stated.

Many people now regard the 20,000 buried below as part of Washington Square Park itself. This sparked a lot of controversy when authorities announced the renovation, which required digging up the original fountain. Many felt that it was disrespectful to be digging up graves.

As construction continues, Washington Square Park will remain as a highlight of Greenwich Village. New York City will have to wait and see what else they dig up.