If you did your homework last time, you already know that Washington Square Park served as a mass burial ground for indigents, slaves, and victims of yellow fever/cholera epidemics of the early 19th century. The site was leveled 1825 after having been closed two years prior due to health concerns and lack of space (slash the fancy people moving northward didn't want dead paupers and slaves for neighbors) and by 1827, construction had begun on townhouses around the Square. Within a few years, Greenwich Village and Washington Square were transformed into a residential haven for New York's elite, their sordid past buried under stately brick houses...along with the 20,000 bodies still lying six feet under.
But of course we all know what happens when you repress your bad memories - they inevitably come back to haunt you! (Especially when they involve dead people...)
On April 30, 1889(just in time for early Sigismund Schlomo Freud! See: repression, above)
nobody in the United States wasn't celebrating the 100th anniversary of George Washington's inauguration
left: G.W. taking the Oath at Federal Hall on Wall Street
right: Federal Hall was razed in 1812 and the Sub-Treasury building was constructed - which is where Obams went to yell at the financial industry this past September! Yay Obams! You tell 'em, mister!
