Union Square, Gramercy Park, and Flatiron

Change is in the air in this flourishing section of Manhattan. Union Square, once a hangout for drug dealers and scene of protest rallies, has been renovated and transformed. A Greenmarket fills the square with fresh produce four times a week, drawing patrons from all over the city, and the neighborhood around the square is attracting an increasing number of new apartments, shops, and restaurants. The shops and lively eating places now extend up Fifth Avenue into the once-neglected Flatiron District, named for the building at the intersection of Fifth Avenue and Broadway at 23rd Street. Quiet Madison Square, opposite the Flatiron Building, is the site of two of the city’s hottest restaurants and is undergoing its own restoration. No change was needed in Gramercy Park, the most European of the city’s neighborhoods.

The City’s Squares Manhattan has only four London-style squares, Union, Madison, Stuyvesant and Gramercy Park, all formed in the 1800s by real estate speculators hoping to profit by selling surrounding lots to the wealthy. The squares provide welcome breaks among the city’s dense, tall buildings, but only Gramercy Park has remained residential.