Dante Park

Dante Park and the poet's statue.

Dante Park or Dante Square is a park in front of Lincoln Center in New York City, New York.

The park was established by Italian-Americans in honor of the Italian poet Dante Alighieri. Carlo Barsotti, editor of the paper Il Progresso Italo-Americano, originally wanted to gather funds for a much more substantial statue to be placed in Times Square around 1912. Because of fundraising difficulties, by 1921, the 600th anniversary of Dante's death, a smaller statue was completed by Ettore Ximenes and placed in the location at Broadway at West 64th Street.

A statue of the same casting is featured at Meridian Hill Park in Washington, DC.

References

• Bill Morgan. Literary Landmarks of New York (Universe: New York, 2002), p. 128.

External links

• NYC PARKS INFORMATION
• "That Statue of Dante in the Heart of Manhattan", by Tiziano Thomas Dossena, Bridgepugliausa.it, 2011