Union Square Park on a market day: white canopy stalls on the north and west plazas, the lawn behind its iron fence under the London planes, the 1932 pavilion at the north end, the equestrian Washington of 1856 at the south end, skaters on the south steps and the subway kiosks beside them. Across 14th Street the Metronome counts the real New York time on fifteen digits, the seconds since midnight on the left and the seconds to midnight on the right. The New Yorkers hang on the stalls, the fence, the pavilion and the boards by the steps.
The park at Union Square was completed and opened in July 1839, named for the union of the two principal thoroughfares of the island that met there. Henry Kirke Brown's equestrian George Washington at the south end was unveiled in 1856, his Lincoln was completed in 1870, Bartholdi's Lafayette was dedicated in 1876 and the Gandhi statue was added in 1986. On September 5, 1882 the first Labor Day celebration paraded through the square. The 14th Street Union Square subway station opened in 1904. The contract for the bandstand at the north end was awarded in August 1931 and civic groups began landscaping the park for free in June 1932. The Union Square Greenmarket opened in 1976 with seven farmers who sold out by noon; set up by the Council on the Environment of New York City, now GrowNYC, it runs year round on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays from 8 am to 6 pm, serves more than 250,000 customers a week in peak season, and the average farm is 90 miles from the market. The Metronome on One Union Square South, by Kristin Jones and Andrew Ginzel, was installed from February 1999 and dedicated on October 26, 1999, one of the largest private commissions of public art in the city: fifteen LED digits, the hours, minutes, seconds and tenths since midnight on the left seven, the time remaining in the day on the right seven, hundredths in the centre, with a plume of steam from the hole at noon and midnight. On September 19, 2020 it became a climate clock. The square was designated a National Historic Landmark on December 9, 1997, and after September 11, 2001 it became a primary public gathering point for mourners.
Source · Union Square, Manhattan; Union Square Greenmarket; Metronome (public artwork), Wikipedia ↗
The fifteen orange digits keeping New York time over the brick wall and its hole, the plain bronze horseman on his granite pedestal, the wide south steps with skaters, the glass subway kiosks, the rows of white market canopies with produce and flowers, the fenced lawn, the columned pavilion, the four pyramid topped towers on the south east corner, and 14th Street traffic. Mood: market day, the whole city passing through. Everything is procedural geometry with painted surfaces; nothing is a scan or a photograph. The room is an interpretation, and it hangs the New Yorkers the census recorded at this place first.