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RED-TAILED HAWKS
The Recreation and the East Village Parks Conservancy have
created a home for a pair of Eastern Red-tailed hawks living in
Tompkins Square Park. Park Rangers have installed a nest of twigs
and vines high in the trees to encourage the Red-tailed Hawks to
stay in the park.
Red-tailed Hawks typically begin to build their nests in the
middle of February to prepare for the mating season that starts in
mid-March. Both male and female hawks assist in constructing their
nest, and the raptors typically return to the same nest site each
year. Red-tailed Hawks, also called Buteos, have a wingspan of four
feet.
Red-Tailed Hawks dine on small mammals such as squirrels, rats
and mice as well as other smaller birds, and are among the largest
Birds of Prey in New York City. During the mating season, these
raptors display spectacular aerial feats, circling and soaring to
great heights, and then folding their wings and plummeting from the
sky.
2/28/2007 - Red Tail Hawk Update
Today we watched a young Red Tail Hawk hunting squirrels in the
park. The squirrels have been taunting the hawk for several months;
last week the hawk figured out how to catch a squirrel; now the
hawk has squirrel for dinner every day. Click on the photo for a
gallery of Red Tail hawk photos,
taken in Tompkins Square Park by local photographer Bob
Arihood.
HISTORY OF
TOMPKINS SQUARE PARK
This 10.5 acre park honors Daniel D. Tompkins (1774–1825), who
served as Governor of New York from 1807 to 1817 and as Vice
President of the United States under James Monroe (1758-1831) from
1817 to 1825. Peter Stuyvesant (1610–1672), director general of the
Dutch colony of New Netherland, owned this property during the
17th century. Tompkins later acquired it, and by the
19th century, it was marked for development as a public
square.
The Commissioners’ Plan of 1811 proposed a large market on this
land stretching from First Avenue to the East River, but plans for
the market never materialized. Bordered today by Avenues A and B,
and 7th and 10th Streets, Tompkins Square
Park was acquired by the City in 1834. Originally swampland, this
site was graded and landscaped between 1835 and 1850.
In 1866, the New York State Legislature ordered the City to
remove a number of trees that had been planted at the time of the
park’s creation to allow for an open parade ground for the Seventh
Regiment of New York. A few Sycamore (Platanus occidentalis) trees
were spared, and of those, three survived to the present day.
Believed to be the oldest trees in the park, two of the Sycamores
can be found along 10th Street and the other is located
on Avenue A at 9th Street.
The New York State Legislature, bowing to pressure from city
residents, redesignated the square as a public park in 1878, and it
was redesigned the following year. Approximately 450 trees were
planted and many of those remain in the park today. Species include
Black locust (Robinia pseudoacacia), American elm (Ulmus
americana), and Oriental plane (Platanus orientalis).
The park is home to several monuments, including the Temperance
Memorial Fountain (1888), the Samuel S. Cox monument (1891), the
Slocum Memorial Fountain (1906), several memorial plaques, and the
Ukrainian-American Flagstaff (1942), which was donated by the
Ukrainian Production Unit of the American Red Cross.
A playground for girls was built in 1904, and in 1911, 10,000
people came here to witness the City’s first inter-park athletic
championships. Parks Commissioner Robert Moses (1888–1981)
expanded recreation opportunities in the park in the 1930s,
adding handball courts and swing sets. A bandshell was completed in
1966 in time for frequent concerts and rallies, which characterized
that period in history.
Since its beginnings in the 19th century, Tompkins
Square Park has served as a place to voice dissent. Demonstrations
in 1857 and 1875 about the lack of jobs and the poor economy gave
way to local residents’ protests about gentrification in the 1980s
and 1990s. In the late 1980s, police and East Village residents
clashed after Parks began enforcing the park’s closing hours, in
effect barring homeless from camping in the park.
In 1991 the park was closed and dozens of homeless people who
had been living in the park were relocated. The park was
reconstructed and reopened in the summer of 1992. During this
renovation, the bandshell was removed, a state-of-the-art dog run
and new playgrounds were built, several monuments conserved, and
the turf and sidewalks replaced.
Today Tompkins Square Park continues to serve a diverse
community, providing a peaceful, meditative environment within the
bustle of city life.
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