Originally part of the estate of Peter Warren in the 1700s, the West Village’s Abingdon Square—really a triangle—was named after the Fourth Duke of Abingdon, who married Warren’s daughter. The land was kind of a wedding present to the couple; it was made into a public park in 1831.
At the time, mansions lined the park. According to a 1921 New York Times article, one of those old mansions was still standing on the corner of Bleecker and Bank Streets.
This photo depicts Abingdon Square around 1900:
The park doesn’t look much different in this 2008 photo. Some of the buildings surrounding it have changed; there’s a Bing and Bing pre-war apartment house facing the park on West 12th Street, plus another big pre-war building looming nearby on Jane Street.
What hasn’t changed is the structure at the left on Hudson Street. Today it’s the Village Nursing Home.
Ephemeral New York 