Vietnam Veterans Plaza

Vietnam Veterans Plaza is an American memorial plaza in Manhattan, New York. It honors New York City citizens who served during the 20th-century Vietnam War.

1. Description and history

Located in the Financial District in Lower Manhattan, it lies on a trapezoidal parcel of land that was formerly a roadway named Coenties Slip. The slip road was used from the 17th century by Dutch sailors between journeys. The slip was filled in 1835, and it then became Jeannette Park in 1884, dedicated to the ill-fated Jeannette of the Jeannette expedition. Horticulturist Samuel Parsons was responsible for laying out the garden in 1886. By the mid-20th century, city planner Robert Moses had rebuilt the park with "horseshoe pitches and tennis, paddleball, handball, and shuffleboard courts all arranged around a tear-shaped asphalt plaza with a flagpole". As part of the construction of the neighboring 55 Water Street, Paul Friedberg was commissioned to redesign the land in 1971, to which he added the amphitheater fountain. Initially, 55 Water Street's owners were responsible for maintaining the park, which was paved in brick similar to the Elevated Acre plaza next to the building. In 1982, plans were unveiled to redevelop Jeannette Park into a memorial for veterans of the Vietnam War. The architects Peter Wormser and William Fellows and the writer Joseph Ferrandino won a competition to design it. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Commission raised private donations of $2.5 million ($1 million from Donald Trump, who served as co-chairman of the commission) to finance the memorial in 1983. The park was officially renamed Vietnam Veterans Plaza on July 20, 1983. The next year, it was announced that the plaza would contain a memorial wall, similar to that at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial but made of glass blocks. It was dedicated on May 6, 1985, by then-mayor Edward I. Koch to honor the 1,741 citizens of the city who died during the Vietnam War and the 250,000 men and women who served between 1964 and 1975. Mayor Rudy Giuliani rededicated the plaza on November 9, 2001, following the September 11, 2001, attacks, as it underwent a $7 million restoration. A new ceremonial entrance was added providing access from Water Street to South Street and a black granite fountain placed at the center. The "Walk of Honor" contains 12 polished granite pylons with the names and ages at death of all 1,741 people who died. In the future, the park may be the site of an entrance to a Second Avenue Subway station under Hanover Square.

1. See also

List of buildings, sites, and monuments in New York City

1. Footnotes


1. External links

Vietnam Veterans Plaza at the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation's official website

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Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation

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Bank Government

55 Water Street

55 Water Street is a 687-foot-tall (209 m) skyscraper on the East River in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan, New York City, United States. The 53-story, 3.5-million-square-foot (325,000 m2) structure was completed in 1972. Designed by Emery Roth and Sons, the building was developed by the Uris brothers. At the time of completion, it was the world's largest privately owned office building by floor area. 55 Water Street is built on a superblock bounded by Coenties Slip to the southwest, Water Street to the northwest, Old Slip to the northeast, and South Street and FDR Drive to the southeast. It is owned by the pension fund Retirement Systems of Alabama (RSA). 55 Water Street is composed of two sections: a 53-story tower to the south and a 15-story wing to the north. The building's facade is made of masonry and glass. The south building is rectangular, while the north building contains sloped walls and runs parallel to the northwestern boundary of the site. The foundations are made of reinforced concrete-slab walls and the superstructure is made of steel. The upper stories each contain 55,000 ft2 (5,100 m2) of space, while the lower stories are almost double that size. There is an elevated public plaza on the eastern part of the site, Elevated Acre, and another public space to the southwest, Jeannette Park (now Vietnam Veterans Plaza). The Uris Buildings Corporation proposed erecting a 53-story building on the site in October 1968, and work began the next year. The building was topped out with a ceremony on June 18, 1971, and tenants began moving into the structure at the beginning of 1972. Initially, several financial firms occupied space at 55 Water Street, including the Chemical Bank of New York, which leased roughly a third of the space and owned 15 percent of the building. National Kinney Corporation bought a majority stake in the Uris properties by late 1973, and it sold 55 Water Street to Olympia and York in 1976. RSA bought the building in 1993 after Olympia and York had difficulties paying off the mortgage. The building was renovated in the 1990s and again in the 2010s.

Industrial Landmark

25 Water Street

25 Water Street, also known as 4 New York Plaza, is a building at Water Street and Broad Street the Financial District of Manhattan in New York City, U.S. It directly adjoins both 125 Broad Street to the south, which is connected, and the Vietnam Veterans Plaza to the east. The building was completed in 1969 and operated as an office building from 1969 to 2022. In 2023 it began a process of redevelopment into a residential building that will have over 1,300 apartments, the largest such office-to-residential property conversion in the United States.

Landmark

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New York City Police Museum

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Landmark Museum