Click http://strangersproject.com/ for more information about this project.
Before the ongoing recent 5 year project to renovate Washington Square Park, this plaza area was enclosed in a ring of scholar trees, providing green park shade, wild life habitat and a wind buffer before this expanded concrete NYU graduation parade ground was constructed. Then, due to greatly expanded NYU enrollments, it could not be used for NYU's graduation ceremony crowds. This park 'development' is an ecological tragedy that has become a dominating concrete plaza and has essentially destroyed the character of what we expect to experience in a green park.
That's another story of life in NYU dominated Greenwich Village. Click http://savewsvsasakigarden.blogspot.com/p/resources.html for more information about how the NYC Government and NYU real estate interests are destroying neighborhood green spaces in our treasured and historic Greenwich Village neighborhoods.