Abingdon Square

Abingdon Square is one of the oldest parks in New York City, formally established when the city acquired the land in eighteen thirty-one. The site was once part of a vast three-hundred-acre estate belonging to Sir Peter Warren, a British naval officer. When his daughter, Charlotte, married Willoughby Bertie, the Fourth Earl of Abingdon, this parcel of land was included in her dowry. While most British place names in Manhattan were stripped away after the Revolutionary War, this square kept its name because the Earl and his wife were known to be sympathetic to the American patriot cause.